Once A Thief
by The Red X
Summary: Red X, thieving prodigy, is only concerned with his next big score. But someone's got X on his hit list. With a rookie heroine as his only allie, Red X is forced to play the hero once again... Since no one else will. Completed.
1. Another Day, Another Dollar

"Crime does not pay… as well as politics." -Alfred E. Newman

………………………………………………………………………………...

11:47 pm.

The alarms wrong all over the museum, and the security system was already sending a message to the local police department and the museum's owner.

Soon the owner arrived to find police surrounding his museum. But a search found nothing. Nothing wrong. Nothing missing. No signs of forced entry.

Nothing.

The owner informed the police that this was the third false alarm this month, and that he'd have to call someone about that in the morning. The police left, the lights inside were turned back off, the doors locked, and all was believed well.

All the paintings rested against the wall without a spec of dust. Every priceless vase stood as stoic as they ever did. Every item in the gift shop remained to be purchased.

12:00 am.

An air vent on the ceiling above a hallway was slowly lowered to the ground by a thin cable. Then Red X, the thieving prodigy, slowly climbed down the cable. Security had been too tight to enter the building without tripping an alarm. But, the interior was a different story. After all, why put a lot of security inside if no one could enter it anyway? So X had set off the alarms on purpose, and now he'd really entered the building and blacked out all the cameras and motion sensors.

And they thought it was a glitch in their "perfect" security system.

X stepped on to the museum floor with caution. Then he let go of the cable he climbed down, and did another quick inventory of his gear.

Grapnels and cables. Check.

Plastic explosives. Check.

Lock pick set. Check.

X shaped shuriken. Check.

Gas canisters. Check.

Various other X-themed weapons. Double check.

With guts steeled and piece of mind obtained, he quietly made his way down the halls to where he needed to be. He walked over to the hall of Japanese art. Before he made another step, he opened a gas canister and let it fog the room, revealing the various laser trip-wires.

A single laser at the entrance was easy to step over. He easily and gracefully walked around the other lasers and made to his target. A priceless Japanese ink painting of Tokugawa himself. It hung delicately from the wall, as if it was just another piece and not priceless. It was guarded by a wall of vertical lasers, forming a large semi-circle around it too the wall.

Call X slim, but his small build had great advantages in this business. In martial arts alone, it made him lighter and thusly much faster, more agile, and more nimble then his opponents. It also meant he could squeeze into air ducts and he was quiet.

The thief removed one of those tubes for holding paintings from his back and under his cape, and carefully placed it inside the semi circle of lasers. Then he picked up his tattered cape and wrapped it around him waste so that it would not wave and trip a laser.

He sucked in his gut, and very carefully stepped between the lasers. If he touched them, then the alarm would trip again, and he'd have to just take the painting the blunt way and run for his life. Or maybe he'd hide again and make it look like another false alarm.

Either way, he'd rather get it this way then waste anymore time.

Being the larcenist that he was, X signed in great relief when he managed to get through the lasers untouched. He gingerly removed the painting from the wall and rolled it up, placing into the protective tube.

X's pulse was surging.

He set the tube back down the ground, and prepared to squeeze between the lasers again. Now that he'd done it once already, he felt more competent about squeezing through, and was satisfied when he made it back out safely.

He unwrapped his tattered cape, letting it drop behind him like a liquid shadow and a security blanket. He reached past the lasers again and retrieved the painting in its protective tube.

With the tube back on his back, under his cape, he eagerly made his way back. The fog from the canister was starting to wear off, so X opened another canister and fogged the room again. With lasers clearly visible, he dodged them all.

There's nothing like the thrill of a successful heist. His employer would pay handsomely for this piece.

On his way out of the Japanese hall, X spotted a beautiful katana sword. According to the sign X tried to read, Kawakami Gensai apparently once used it. Red X stood still for a moment, admiring its beauty from behind a glass case. He couldn't still it now, but X did make a mental note of it.

Wouldn't it be so funny if he robbed the same place twice?

Forgetting it, the thief traveled back to the hallway he entered from. He climbed back up the cable, into the air duct, and pulled the air vent back into place.

Then he crawled back through the air ducts, onto the roof, down the side of the wall, and ran for it. But it was okay this time: When he tripped the alarms on purpose earlier, he blacked out all the cameras and motion sensors.

And this time, he had a painting worth over five million dollars.

-X-

Running on the perpetual high of a successful heist, Red X ran down the rooftops and jumped over the alleys of Jump City. With his job mostly done, he could take a more conspicuous route to his fence, but he'd rather burn off all this spare energy.

"X! Freeze!"

Red X turned around on his heel and saw exactly who he expected it to be.

Robin. Starfire. Cyborg. Beast Boy. Raven.

The Teen Titans. Guardians of Jump City. His favorite sparring partners.

"Well, well. Nice to see you again.", X said. "Tell me, what are kids like you doing on a rooftop like this?"

"We were on patrol since the museum's alarm. Beast boy spotted you when we fanned out.", Raven informed him.

"Please, surrender now and you will come to no harm.", gentle Starfire urged.

"Sorry, I don't _do_ surrenders." X waved a hand and launched a volley of shuriken that made the Titans scatter.

"Titans! Go!", Robin yelled, then instantly ducked to avoid one of X's shuriken.

"You need a new line!", Red X yelled back. Then he ran to avoid blasts from Cyborg's sonic cannon.

"Yeah you better run!", the half-robotic teen yelled.

Red X ran towards Cyborg and ducked or rolled to dodge each blast. Then when he was close, he rolled on the ground and produced a taser device from his belt. He pressed the trigger, and the prongs attached themselves to Cyborg's metal chest and sent a surge of electricity into his half-metal and half-organic body.

"Agh!!!", he screamed.

"Roar!"

Red X heard Beast Boy transform into a gorilla behind him, so he shoved his hand in his mouth along with the taser. Before Beast Boy knew it, he and Cyborg were simultaneously electrocuted; Red X's suit was insulated from such shocks. X removed his hand, and Cyborg and Beast Boy fell to ground when the charge died.

"Shocking.", Red X commented.

Then a blast from Starfire's eyes caught him off-guard and sent him flying across the roof. He hit and skid across the ground, thankful that his stolen painting was well protected inside the case on his back.

Starfire launched a volley of starbolts and X quickly skirted across the ground.

"I'll ask you again, please surrender!", she said.

Red X held out his fist and launched a giant expanding X from his forearm that flew towards Starfire like a runaway bola. It wrapped around her and incapacitated her with a short electrical shock. The Tamaranian fell from the sky and landed safely on the ground a few feet below.

"Starfire!", Robin yelled as he ran towards them.

"Sorry, kid. She's a little tied up right now.", Red X commented.

Robin lunged at X, but the thief dived away at the last moment.

Red X looked behind him at Robin and said, "Left ya a present."

Robin looked down, and saw an X-shaped shuriken on the ground with a blinking blue light in the middle. It exploded and a layer of ice froze over the ground, causing Robin to loose his footing and slip on to the icy ground.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."

X looked to the source of the chant and saw the teenage sorceress, Raven, floating above with her cloak blowing in the wind.

Before X could comment, a satellite TV dish was engulfed in black energy, torn from it's spot onto roof, and hurled towards X.

X dodged it, and sent an x-grenade her way. She replied by forming a black spear around herself to protect her from the blast. Red X decided to take the second to plan his next move and retrieve his special secret weapon against her.

Raven's powers were the most powerful, most versatile, and least understood. She also had an extensive knowledge of other magics and spells but preferred to fight with her typical powers. Either way, she needed concentration.

And Red X knew just how to distract her like a good TV show the night before a big test.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" An air conditioner unit from an adjacent rooftop glowed with black energy and was ripped from the rooftop and hurled towards Red X.

Red X jumped onto it, and jumped off before it hit the ground with a loud crash. Momentarily airborne, he threw a small silvery disk towards Raven.

Too distracted by her current spell to react in time, Raven watched as the disk landed and attached to her left shoulder. Suddenly she grit her teeth, closed her eyes, and covered her ears in pain as the device emitted the most terrible noise ever.

"Try concentrating with every song ever written by the Beastie Boys all played at once at 500 decibels!", X taunted as Raven tried to escape the noise.

Then he jumped out of the way as Robin attempted to drop kick X from the side. As soon as X had dodged the kick, Robin threw a birdarang at him.

X barely dodged in time to return a few shuriken. Robin dodged, and ran forward to attack with a volley of punches.

X slapped the punches out of the way and kneed Robin in the gut when he was close enough. Robin stepped back, and took a fighting stance.

"What did you steal this time?", he said with spit, either that or his stomach hurt more then X thought.

"Think I'd tell you?"

"Then will you tell me who you're working for?"

Red X laughed. "Did you actually expect me to tell you that?"

Robin grinned. "It was worth a try." He sent a kick towards X but he blocked it and tripped Robin's standing foot. Robin fell to the ground.

"Sorry to cut this short, kid. I'd love to continue this, but I really got a package to deliver. Through rain and sleet and all that stuff." Red X bolted for the end of the rooftop.

"No! Stop!", Robin yelled. He looked behind him and saw that Cyborg and Beast Boy had recovered and where helping the other fallen Titans. Good, he could chase Red X.

Red X had reached the edge of the rooftop, and took out his own grapnel gun and fired it. The x-shaped grappling (partially painted red) unfolded and anchored itself on the rooftop ledge across the alley. The thief jumped over the edge and repelled down the side a graffiti stained brick wall quickly.

When he landed in the alley, he quickly retracted the line and grappling hook and put away the grapnel gun, then sprinted for freedom.

"Agh!!!", Robin screamed as he descend from above, having let go of his line earlier, and lunged down at X. The hero tackled the thief and they tumbled and rolled along the dirty alley floor.

They hit a trash can, let go of each other and rolled apart before getting back to their feet.

Robin reached for his belt to withdraw a freeze disk, then whipped his hand forward to launch it but realized he had a hand full of… Nothing. Robin looked down and his eyes widened with shock and a little horror.

His utility belt was missing!

Red X pulled back his black tattered cape, and held up Robin's belt. "Guess this makes us even.", he said.

Robin was too dumbfounded and shocked to even protest.

Red X tucked the prized belt away behind him, and reached to press the button on his belt buckle. "Better luck next time.". He pressed the button before Robin could react or protest, and instantly the thief's image scrambled and he disappeared.

Robin stood alone in the alley, missing the familiar weight and presence of his belt. Still too dumbfounded to be angry yet, he wondered why he ever equipped that suit with a cloaking device.

-X-

_Knock! Knock! Knock!_

"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming!", Jinx yelled as she walked towards the door of temporary base she, Gizmo, and Mammoth were staying at. She figured it was either Gizmo at the door, having forgotten his keys, or those two other Hive Students who wanted to join the team.

She opened the door and was greeted instead by Red X. "Red X!" She slapped on a charming smile. "Didn't expect you. What are you doing here?"

"I was just in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by and see Gizmo. He here?", Red X asked.

"No. Said something about a bootleg copy of that game Mega-Monkey's or something."

"Oh… Well do you think he'll mind if I use his tech for a moment? I'll put everything back."

She smiled. "No problem! Come on in!"

X took a ginger step into their temporary base. "Sure he won't mind?"

"Not if he doesn't know.", she suggested with a tease.

Red X closed the door behind him, and Jinx led him across the base. They passed Mammoth, who was too busy watching TV to even notice their presence.

Jinx led him to the door of Gizmo's workshop, but it was locked via an electronic keypad.

"Ya know, I think I can pick that.", X offered.

Jinx just smiled and demonstrated her skills by sending a carefully placed hex that unlocked the door and opened it.

"Or that."

Jinx held up her hands and twiddled her fingers. "Magic hands.", she smirked.

"I bet.", Red X said, walking right past her and into Gizmo's shop.

Jinx sighed and rolled her eyes, frustrated by X's lack of catching signals, then followed him into the workshop.

They stood in the workshop, amongst the tables full of gadgets and parts. Red X took a quick look around, and walked strait to the device he wished to use. He was already familiar with Gizmo's workshop, he often hired Gizmo to build him various gadgets.

Now, Red X was till pretty technologically minded. He even rebuilt another zynothium belt to replace the one Robin stole (although Gizmo provided various parts). However, he still employed Gizmo's expertise fairly often. He'd even gain Gizmo's good side but sitting and listening to the short genius speak his mind, wondering why he talked so strangely.

Red X reached behind him, and produced Robin's belt. He placed it on the table. The sight of it made Jinx's eyes widen with ah.

"Is that what I think it is?", she asked, admiringly.

"Yep. Palmed it off him earlier tonight in a fight." X picked up a prong shaped device and began waving it over the belt, paying attention to the various beeps and lights from the device. "I already deactivated his communicator, but I don't want to take the chance that Robin carries a few tracers or a homing beacon in his belt. Don't want him to follow me."

Something finally clicked in Jinx's head. "So you brought it here? What's stopping them from tracking it to here?!"

"Can't. This place is shielded against transmissions."

"How would you know?"

"Gizmo told me."

The prong shaped device, a communication scanner, alerted Red X to a located signal in one of the utility belt's compartment. Red X opened the compartment and removed a tiny tracer from it.

He held it between his fingers and up for examination. "Bingo." He squeezed his fingers and shattered the device, extinguishing any chance of Robin finding his belt.

"Ya know, I once wore Robin's belt. When we took over their tower.", Jinx said, obviously trying to impress him.

He put away Gizmo's device. "I remember that, you tried to turn it into a giant 'H.'"

"Would've worked. So… You wouldn't be wiling to fence that, would you?"

He clutched the belt in his hands protectively, and then put it away behind his back and under his cape. "Sorry, babe. This one's going on my wall."

"Oh well."

"Well, love to stay and chat, but I gotta be on my way.", he charmed then started to walk off. He looked back and waved a hand over his shoulder. "Thanks again."

"Wait. Got to go so soon?", she followed after him.

"I got business to take care of. Can't keep my fence waiting.", he said as he began to walk back across the base towards the door. Mammoth was still watching TV and oblivious to them.

Jinx stepped up her pace a bit, and tried her best to sound inviting.

"Hey, we might go hit up a bank or something sometime. Wanna tag along?"

Red X opened the front door and looked back. Jinx could imagine a handsome smirk under his mask just from his smooth voice. "Sounds like fun. Catch ya later."

Jinx watch as the mysterious super thief, the young gentlemen thief, took a step out the door. His cape danced in the wind out side before he shut the door behind him, shutting off Jinx from gazing at him longer and returning her to reality.

As soon as the door shut she instantly sighed and frowned, shoulders hunched. She stood there and stewed for a moment.

Mammoth appeared behind her with an old chicken leg in his hand and a massive bite in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and then spoke. "Do you like him or something?"

"...maybe…", she moaned.

"Are you just trying to get over that Stone guy?"

Jinx didn't speak, but did point her finger up and sent a hex upwards, which caused a piece of the ceiling to fall on Mammoth's head.

-X-

Jump City's little private Chinatown was alive with activity. Few American people mingled well with the other people of Asian decent (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, ect…) that gathered here, but two people in particular got along quite well here. In fact, they thrived.

One of those two people was Red X, who enjoyed fresh sushi and often visited the Japanese district. The other was a man by the name of Kartarou, who lived in the Chinese district and collected various Asian art and weapons.

Red X stealthily crept through an open window to some building in that Chinese district. Once he stepped foot inside and stood up, he looked around room, gazing at the rice paper walls and various oriental arts on the wall.

"Katarou! You here?", Red X called.

Katarou and Red X got along well. Both shared a love for oriental culture and art. Both shared a passion for the martial arts and sometimes spared or trained together. And they were both thieves, but Kartarou only stole for his own collection.

A rice paper wall slid back and Kartaour entered, a towel around his neck and sweat on his forehead indicated that X had interrupted his training.

"I interrupt something?", X asked.

"Nonsense, I'm pleased to see you, my friend. I assume you have what I have asked of you?", he asked with a surprisingly warm and friendly tone.

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't." Red X removed the protective tube from behind him. "And it even comes with it's own collector's case." He removed the ink painting from the tube, replaced the tube behind his back, and held the painting up to unroll and display its beauty.

Katarou smiled widely. "Exquisite." He walked over to a table beside the wall and opened a brief case that sat on the table. When he opened it, Red X eyed the money inside. "I have your reward as well.", Katarou said.

Red X held the painting by its edge in one hand, and extended his free hand to except the brief case.

Katarou closed the brief case, and handed it to Red X as he simultaneously took the painting. While Katarou began hanging the painting on his wall, Red X turned and opened the brief case.

"All my favorite dead presidents.", X commented with glee. "Pleasure doing business, big guy."

Kartarou finished hanging the painting and turned to X. "Yes, we should do business again soon."

"You've got my number." X closed the brief case, and him and Katarou did a short bow to each other.

"Would you like to stay for some tea, X-san?", Katarou offered.

"Sorry, big guy. I gotta get ready for my next job, but I'll definitely take you up on that offer sometime."

"You're a busy young man, X-san. Take care and good luck on your next job."

"Same to you, Katarou-san." Red X turned around, and exited out the window, returning to the night from which he came.

-X-

Red X lived in a lofty two-story apartment, with bedrooms on the loft above the living room and open to the kitchen. The large living room X had divided into two spaces. One half, by a bathroom, was his living room with a TV to the wall and a couch sitting away from it. Behind the couch, X had turned the other half into a mini dojo so he could practice. The dojo was complete with thick floor mats, and racks of various weapons, both real and padded. He turned the guest room into a workshop where he could plan his next heist and repair or modify his suit. Hidden cameras, activated by motion sensors, placed on the rooftop and down the hall leading to his front door could be monitored from a flat screen monitor near the kitchen. He kept a pet rock in a small cage in his room.

Home sweet home.

Red X opened a window and stepped into his apartment. He wiped his feet on a welcome matt he placed there, and walked over to the coffee table between the couch and TV. He set Robin's utility belt down there next to a fancy vase he stole once. One time he ate popcorn out of that vase. He set down the brief case full of money down on the floor beside the coffee table.

He walked over to the bathroom and shut the door. Staring at himself in the mirror, he took off his mask and set it gently on the counter by the sink. Then he took off his belt and hung it by his towel. He stripped off the rest of the suit and let it fall to the floor.

The hot water in the shower washed over his tired body, rinsing away the fatigue and recharging him. It's amazing what a hot shower could do. Bruce Lee said to be like water.

After the hot shower, Red X dried off and dressed in pajama pants. He collected his suit, and then stepped out of the steamy bathroom. He ascended a winding staircase up to the bedrooms and entered his workshop.

He set the suit on a table. He would reload and maintain it tomorrow, now it was time for bed. He couldn't wait to enter his bedroom, say hello to his pet rock, then crawl into his bed and fall asleep.

But before Red X left the room his eyes gazed over to the maps and blueprints on the other side of the room. He found himself thinking for a moment about his next job.

A fresh load of zynothium in Star City.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Finally the first chapter is done and this thing is starting. Also, if anyone didn't understand my description of Red X's apartment then I do have a floor plan I can e-mail you.

Please Review.


	2. A Blur Of Red

"Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy." -Spike Milligan

………………………………………………………………………………...

Star City. 10:57 pm.

The large vault door cracked open and Red X breathed a sigh of relief. It had taken him longer then he would've liked to crack the lock and open the large metal door, but he did eventually open the safe door. With a sense of aw and thankfulness, he stared at the ten zynothium vials lined against one of the large vault's walls.

Taking a quicker stride in his step, X quickly pulled the brief case he had strapped to his back off and laid it opened on the floor. The inside of the case was padded with the same foam NASA used, the same foam that one could now purchase as a mattress.

He picked up vial after vial of red zynothium ore and placed it in the brief case, laying them on the soft protective foam. After all ten vials had been collected and arranged inside the brief case, Red X closed it and the foam held the vials safely yet gently. Those vials would keep the suit going for a very long time, and he grinned with a mischievous delight as he strapped the brief case on his back again.

Suddenly an alarm sounded from somewhere in the building.

Every thief dreads that. It was so unexpected and scary that Red X's heart skipped a few beats and the eye sockets in his mask crew wide. As soon as he regained his pulse, his brain began flying with thoughts. What had he done to trip an alarm? Would guards come?

Then he heard crashes and booms coming from somewhere beyond the vault. Definitely not guards. He heard a crash again, this time coming from below him.

Suddenly the floor itself exploded apart into pieces and a large red figure crashed through it, throwing Red X to the floor. When the dust cleared, X saw who had tripped those alarms.

"Adonis!", Red X said.

"Huh? Who are you?", Adonis asked, portraying all the intelligence of a woodchuck eating paint chips. "How do u know my name?"

"I know everyone's names. I'm a very connected person." He suddenly switched tones. "What are you doing here!"

"I'm here to take the the red stuff here. Zyn- something or something."

"You have got to be kidding me!"

"Why? Hey, you're Red X, aren't you! My boss said I might find you here."

"What?"

Adonis took the last few steps out of the hole in the floor and stepped foot on the unstable floor, towering over Red X. "He said if I found you, I should squash you like a bug." Adonis grinned.

"It's gonna be one of those nights...", Red X lamented.

-X-

11:07 pm.

_Crash!_

A few crates crashed against the wall seconds after Red X dodged them. He had managed to escape from the vault with the brief case full of zynothium still on his back, then Adonis had chased him through out the building and they'd now landed in a giant warehouse where the tech company stored supplies and parts. Adonis threw a few more crates and X dodged them as well.

Red X then heard the whizzing sound of an arrow gliding by, and he felt he brief case fall from his back and to the floor. Had an arrow cut the straps holding the case to his back? Both him and Adonis looked up and saw a figure standing on a tall stack of crates.

The female figure had blonde hair and a thin build. She wore a white short skirt and a cut off crimson red shirt, which reminded X of a cheerleader's outfit. The shirt appeared to be of a harder texture (possible woven with Kevlar). A red mask covered her eyes and forehead, and acted as a headband, keeping her blonde hair under control. She also had thigh-high crimson red boots on. Strapped around her back where multiple arrows in their holder, and a red bow was held tightly in her grip.

"Who are you?", Adonis asked.

"I'm Arrowette, guardian of Star City!", she said.

"Queen of the over-dramatic!", Red X yelled.

Adonis started laughing.

"Hey!", Arrowette said, wounded by the remark. "You're under arrest!"

"Sorry, girly. I don't do arrests." Red X suddenly pulled out his grapnel gun, and fired the X-shaped grapnel towards her.

She dodged the grapnel, but X immediately pulled it back along its path. The grapnel snagged Arrowette's bow, pulling it out of her hands, as it returned to Red X. The thief simply caught the bow in his free hand as the grapnel returned to its gun.

"Somebody loose this?", Red X mocked.

Arrowette was rather stunned at first. No one had ever stolen her bow before!

Red X put away his grapnel gun but kept her bow firmly in hand. "Adonis, maybe we should take care of her first, and then worry about the zyn-"

But Adonis had other plans. He grabbed Red X by the cape and threw him into another stack of crates, which caused him to let go of Arrowette's bow. The force of the impact rattled the thief's teeth and shook him to the bones. He fell and slumped on the floor for a moment.

He fought the haze and tried to stay conscience. Having mostly succeeded, he rose to the ground with a few grunts and moans. But as soon the birdies quit spinning around his head, he saw Arrowette fly towards him with a kick.

Red X reacted so fast is even surprised him, he grabbed Arrowette's kicking leg, and flung it upwards which sent her off balance and two the floor. Red X quickly cleared his head, took a fighting stance, and prepared for a fight. Arrowette scrambled to her feet and took a typical Judo stance and attacked.

She charged forward with a barrage of punches, while Red X repeated blocked them inwardly. X got in a nice strait punch, which contacted with her forehead and sent her a step back, and then he followed up with a round kick to the side of her abdomen. She doubled over a tad and stepped back again to catch her breath.

"Look, cutie, I don't like hitting girls, so why don't you just run along?", Red X said still in a fighting stance, trying to keep up chivalry.

"Yeah right!" Arrowette took up her stance again. "I'm not giving up that easily, thief!" She attacked again with a few round kicks of her own, which X blocked.

Red X noticed she was using kickboxing now, and a Judo stance earlier. Red X preferred Jeet Kune Do mixed with Ninjutsu, and added a pinch of Tae Kwon Do or Akido every now and then. Knowing an opponents style can mean victory.

Arrowette continued with some good kicks, and one sidekick caught Red X in the stomach. However, it was very disheartening to Arrowette to see how little her kick hurt him.

X punched again, and she caught the punch. With her arms wrestling to hold the punch, she had no defense from a strait round kick to her side again. X had baited her with the punch, a kind of technique encouraged by Bruce Lee.

She almost fell off her feet, but caught her balance again. She tried to kick X's head again, but he ducked below it and kicked her standing leg out from under her. She fell to the ground instantly.

She knew this wasn't going to work; Red X was a better martial artist. She bolted along the ground, and grabbed her bow off the ground. Then she immediately rolled away to dodge some of X's shuriken.

She took an arrow from the holder on her back. X fired some x-shaped blast, and she bolted forward towards him.

He sidestepped her as she pulled the arrow into the bow.

Silence.

He held his palm towards her face, ready to fire any number of weapons. She held her bow and arrow at him, ready to release any kind of trick arrow.

Neither said anything for a moment.

Suddenly (in one swift blink of an eye) Adonis crashed through some crates they were next to, grabbed both of their stunned forms, and pulled them back through he pile of crates before it collapsed.

Next thing Red X and Arrowette knew, they were on the ground, stunned and a little whip lashed.

Note to self: Never let Adonis get his hand on you. For a big guy, he can be fast.

"Heh Heh! Thanks for the red stuff guys!", he held up the brief case that contained the precious zynothium vials. "Later!" He ran off towards the warehouse exit.

Thinking quickly, Arrowette pulled out a special arrow, pulled it back into her bow, and sent it flying at Adonis. The arrow bounced harmlessly off Adonis's armored back as he left, but it did leave a miniature tracer attached to him.

Arrowette rose to her feet so he wouldn't get to far ahead, but she tripped when Red X grabbed her ankle while he was still on the floor. She kicked him in the head after she fell, so he let go and she ran off to catch Adonis.

About a minuet later, Red X finally rose to his feet with a few moans and a headache. He looked around and found the giant door that Adonis had ripped off on his way out.

"So who's smarter, girly? You for planting a tracer on him?"

He paused.

"Or me for knowing you would and attaching a tracer of my own when I grabbed your ankle?"

-X-

"What a stupid place to hide.", Adonis said as he eyed the greenhouse on the rooftop to some anonymous building in Star City. "But I guess it'll work." He fondled the brief case. "You'll make it all worth it."

"Hate to break you two up, but you're still under arrest." Arrowette said as she entered behind him.

"You'd come back for more?", Adonis said with a smile as he set the brief case down on the floor under a table of potted plants.

Arrowette, seeing that he would resist arrest again, fired three arrows, which harmless bounced off Adonis's armor again. He replied by picking up another table and throwing it at her.

She barely bolted away to dodge it, but still felt something hit and cut her fight calf muscle. When she landed on the ground, she withdrew another arrow and pulled it into her bow.

Adonis started laughing. "Don't you get it! You can't hurt me!" Then a punching-glove arrow hit him square on his exposed face.

"You were saying?", she mocked.

"Agh!", Adonis screamed in rage. He slammed his fist colossal fist into a table and broke it in half, spewing potted plants all over the room. He then grabbed the half of a table, and threw it at Arrowette.

This time it made contact, and the surface of the table knocked her back onto her feet. By the time she regained her senses, Adonis was already standing over her. He grabbed her neck and jaw with his huge left hand and lifted her up, her feet no longer touched the ground.

"I'll show you, and everyone else, why no on messes with Adonis!", he said. "I'll break you in two!"

He slowly squeezed, and Arrowette couldn't even yell or make a sound. She didn't want to think how long it would before he crushed her face and ended her short career as a superhero.

"I've heard enough.", Red X said.

Suddenly his dark and shadowy form jumped up from behind Arrowette, and he flipped over Adonis. He planted an explosive shuriken in the left shoulder joint of Adonis's suit in the process.

It blew up.

Red X was blown back and skid on the floor; he hadn't taken his own landing into consideration. Part of Adonis's shoulder armor was blown off, not meant to withstand a blast from in between the joint. Arrowette fell back to the floor safely, coughing and gagging as air returned to her lungs through her throat.

Adonis turned around and looked at Red X as he got up from the floor, fire burning in Adonis eyes.

"Why… DOES EVERYONE PICK ON ME!", Adonis yelled.

"You were choking her you idiot!", Red X answered.

"AGH!" Adonis clubbed the ground, breaking the cement into pieces. He picked up a piece and flung it at Red X like a frisbee. Red X had barely dodged it, and it broke the glass wall of the greenhouse behind him.

Red X flung a volley of shuriken at Adonis, and they all exploded across his armored body.

"Do you really think you can defeat me? The great Adonis!"

"I don't have too.", Red X said.

"Huh?", he said, once again with the intelligence of a woodchuck eating paint chips.

Red X pointed to behind Adonis. "Because you've got a big hold in your back."

Adonis turned his head around, and saw Arrowette cock a taser-arrow into her bow, and release it. The arrow flew into the hole in Adonis shoulder.

Adonis screamed as an electrical charge short-circuited and flooded his systems. After the charge died off, Adonis's armor was smoking and useless. He slowly leaned backwards, and then fell to the concrete ground with a loud crash.

"The bigger you are, the harder you fall.", Red X said. The thief, temporarily turned hero, got up onto his feet and walked over to Adonis. "Who hired you?"

"Your mama!"

"Who hired you?", Red X repeated, more firmly then before.

"What makes you think anyone hired me!"

"Because this doesn't fit your M.O. Besides, you said earlier you had a boss. Who?", Red X sternly demanded.

Adonis said nothing.

Red X walked towards a hose, turned it on, and walked back over to Adonis. Then he began watering some of the hanging plants next to Adonis. "Yeah know, it would be pretty unfortunate if any of this water got on you. I mean, with that big hole in your back, the water would cause another short circuit." He stared at Adonis. "Talk!"

"No!"

Red X pushed his thumb over the mouth of the hose, causing the water to violently spray over Adonis's head. Adonis couldn't see where the water was because he couldn't move at all in his disabled suit. 

"Won't be long till the water drips and flows into the back of your suit. Talk!"

"I- I don't know who he was!", Adoins said panicking. "It was, some guy in a space suit!"

"Some guy in a space suit? You're gonna have to make up a more creative story."

"Seriously! Some guy in a space suit came to me and told me about a load of that red stuff coming here. Said he would pay much a bunch if I stole it! Said I might run into you!"

"Who was he?", X demanded.

"I don't know! I didn't get his name. Said he'd reach me back in Jump City. That's all I know! Honest!"

"Thanks, big guy." Red X threw the hose aside, and walked over to the valve and turned it off.

"Hey! Hey, wait! What about the water! You can't just leave me here!"

Red X looked at him over his caped shoulder. "Wanna hear something really funny? There's a drainage gate just above your head, the water's been dripping into there the entire time. You were never in danger of getting wet."

Adonis's eyes widened.

"But if it'll make you feel better, I'll go buy you some water wings?", Red X proposed.

"AGH!", Adonis screamed.

"Pick a number and get in line.", Red X said as he picked up his brief case. He looked over to Arrowette, who was still on the floor and who had watched the whole thing. "You okay?", he asked.

She finally got up off the floor and picked up her bow. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Good. Later."

"Hold it! You're under arrest too!"

"Oh give me a break!"

"Look, I appreciate the help bring down Adonis…"

"And stopping him from breaking your neck. Don't forget that."

Arrowette hated to admit it. "Yeah… Thanks for saving my life… But I still can't let you get away. You're a thief and a criminal." She pulled another arrow into her bow. "And I can't let you get away."

"Well you got your job, and I got mine, sweet heart. But I don't you wanna take the chance of hitting the rocks with one of those arrows." He held the brief case full of zynothium next to his head with his right hand.

Arrowette let go of the arrow and it whizzed past Red X's head, missing by a centimeter at most.

Without missing a beat, Red X said, "Okay, you're good." He flicked a shuriken out of his wrist gauntlet and into his left hand. "But so am I." Red X flung the shuriken, hoping his aim with a left hand was still good.

Arrowette flinched in surprise. Then she felt the familiar weight of her arrows disappear as they fell from her back and onto the ground. The strap that held them close had been cut with X's shuriken. She was stunned again.

"Later, cutie. I gotta get going." X lowered his brief case back down to his side and ran out of the green house and to the rooftop it was on.

Arrowette ran after him. "Hey, wait!"

Red X stopped before he was about to jump off the edge and looked back, the brief case now somehow fastened to his belt.

"Why did you come back and save my neck, literally? You could've just taken the brief case during the fight and run off."

"Because I'm not such a bad guy, once you get to know me."

"Yeah, well…"

"Look…" He turned around and looked her dead in the eyes. "I said it to Robin and I'll say it to you. I'm just a thief. I'm not a murderer, and I'm not so cold hearted that I'd turn my back while someone else gets hurt. In fact, I've gone way out of my way to make sure no one does get hurt."

Arrowette stared at him intensely.

"So long as everyone's still breathing by the end of the night and I got away with what I came for, I'm quite happy."

She smirked. "Okay, so you're not as bad as half the crooks out there."

"I like to think I set a good example."

"I guess this is the part where you get away, huh?"

"Guess it is."

"Couldn't blame me if I tried to track you down, could you?"

"It's your job."

"And I plan to be pretty good at that job."

"Well then…" Red X stepped a foot on the ledge of the rooftop. "Catch me if you can!" He jumped off the rooftop and Arrowette watch as he disappeared over the edge.

She instantly ran over to the edge to see if he was still alive, and saw him swinging away on his grapnel and line, his cape blowing behind him. Soon he disappeared from her sight and into the shadows of an alley, his grapnel retracting and returning to him.

Arrowette smirked. "Ya know, Star City's other resident superhero will be back in town soon. And I could use a big capture like that to boost my reputation…", she reasoned to herself.

But first, she'd turn in Adonis, her first super villain. She turned around and walked back towards Adonis, whistling quite merrily.

"I think a trip to Jump City is in order.", she said, smiling widely.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Alright! Second chapter down.

I would like to take a moment to thank my reviewers… All two of them so far.

For those of you who are a little confused about the character of Arrowette… She was a member of the Young Justice group, who were close allies of the Teen Titans. I've done a lot of research on her, even down to her preferred fighting style (Kickboxing and Judo).

Please review.


	3. Somebody Hates Me

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate." -Thomas Jones

………………………………………………………………………………...

Two days later, Jump City.

Cissie King-Jones, a.k.a. Arrowette, stepped off the bus and took a deep breath of Jump City's fresh air. Only to regret it because all she smelt was diesel exhaust from the bus.

After coughing her lungs out, and quickly retrieving her luggage, she made her way down the sidewalk towards her hotel room. She was thankful to be breathing cleaner air now. Jump City, boarding on the Pacific Ocean, was gifted with a nice cold breeze today, and Cissie enjoyed the cool breeze.

She caught the scent of pizza from a nice little pizza place on the corner of a fork in the road. She heard that the Teen Titans actually liked to eat there (or so it said on the tourist's map), so it didn't surprise her to see a big sign on the window that said "The Teen Titan's choice for pizza!".

She turned around and saw a glimpse of the magnificent Titans Tower past the tall buildings and skyscrapers. She planned to visit them as Arrowette and talk to them about Red X, and she wondered if bringing them some pizza would get her on their good side.

-X-

"So then I hid in the alley for a bit. After that, I made my way to my hotel room very carefully.", Red X said as he recounted the story of what happened in Star City to Katarou.

Him and Katarou were training at Katarou's place. Katarou was practicing with a bo staff ("bojutsu" in Japanese) and Red X was throwing shuriken ("shurikenjutsu" in Japanese) at a target board.

"Interesting.", Katarou replied as he continued with his forms and katas. "Yah!", he yelled as he swung his staff. "Are you worried she will follow you here to Jump City? It is known as your home after all. Yah!"

"Nah." Red X threw another shuriken at the target board. "I already got the Teen Titans on my heels, one more hero wont hurt. Besides, I'd rather her chase me then Robin anyways. Bulls eye!"

"Yah! Why's that?"

"Because she's better looking then bird-boy."

Katarou laughed. He laughed so hard he dropped his staff and forgot about doing his katas. It was a deep laugh from the belly, the kind you get at a family reunion if you like your family. It was both odd and warming to hear it come from the big guy. You could almost forget he was a criminal and mistake him for your beloved uncle.

Red X took the laugh as a compliment to his sense of humor, and threw another shuriken.

Bull's eye.

-X-

Arrowette wasn't pleased with the price of renting a boat to get to the Titan's private little island, and she wasn't thrilled with how much "The Teen Titan's favorite pizza" cost. But despite all that, she stood on the shore of the Titan's island, with three pizzas in her arms. One pizza was a vegetarian special, just for Beast Boy; and another was a carnivore's special, for Cyborg; the third was a regular cheese pizza.

She made the trek to the Titan's doorstep, and pressed what looked to her like a doorbell. A robotic camera scanned her over from head to toe, assessing that she was not a threat. Then a computer screen next to the doorbell said, "One moment please."

She looked all the way up and wondered how long it would take someone to get from the very top of the tower down to her. Well, that one moment was a long moment, and she passed the time by tapping her foot and hoping the pizzas hadn't gotten cold.

"WHO _DARES_ TO DISTURB THE TEEN TITANS?!", I thunderous voice roared.

The large doors slowly opened and slid away, and standing before Arrowette was the hulking frame of the half-human, half-robotic, member of the Titans. He loomed over her, his mechanical eye glowing a demonic shade of red. His features were slightly hidden by the shadow he cast which spread and covered Arrowette too.

"WHO DARES..." Sniff. Sniff. "Hey! Is that pizza! Sweet!" Cyborg instantly shifted from menacing tone and image of doom and malice to a warm and inviting teddy bear.

Arrowette was left only with an odd smile and a nervous twitch. She quickly shook her head to regain her thoughts and senses. "Hi, I'm Arrowette, and-"

"Arrowette? You supposed to be some new kinda pizza delivery girl?"

"Um… No. I'm from Star City. I guess you could say I'm the resident heroine there. I came to speak to you guys, if you wouldn't mind."

"But you are going to share that pizza, right?"

"Yes…"

"Well then come on in!"

Arrowette sighed in relieve, and gladly followed Cyborg into the massive tower.

"Oh, and you might wanna check into our infirmary, dawg.", Cyborg said.

"Why?"

"You look like you're about to pass out."

-X-

Red X didn't like this… thing he was about to steal. All he knew was that Rupert Thorne had developed a taste in modern art, and would like this particular thing. Red X didn't even know how to describe it, aside from a collection of scrap metal wielded together and then given a tacky paint job from the 60's. It was supposed to represent the circle of life. Go figure. Either way, someone somewhere decided it was art, and thusly worth five hundred thousand dollars. And that was good enough in Red X's eyes.

Granted, he didn't need that money; he just sold that Japanese ink painting to Katarou. But if it were money this thief was after, he wouldn't be where he was today.

It was thrill he was after. And if some superheroes or police wanted to duke it out to stop him… All the more thrill.

It was after closing time, the guards were all safe in dreamland, and with the laser trip-wires, motion sensors, and cameras all deactivated from the security room itself, he was free to take his marry time. Red X would have looted this whole museum of modern art, but he didn't like most modern art and he didn't know of anyone else who would buy it from him.

The thing he was stealing rested on a pedestal, a glass dome had been secured on top of it for the night. X had cut a hole into the inside of the pedestal, and had just finished disabling the alarms and pressure sensors protecting the thing.

With that done, Red X stood up and removed the glass dome so carefully. A wave of relief washed over him when no alarm triggered. He bent over and set the glass dome on the ground, but something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. As soon as he bent down a red laser dot appeared on the opposite wall, and it soon descended towards X and disappeared.

Thinking quickly, and hoping it wasn't what he thought it was, he quickly darted his head to the right and saw the laser dot appear again. Then the dot shifted right and disappeared.

That's when he figured it out.

It was the dot from a laser-sight on a gun! And it kept disappearing behind the back of his _head_!

Red X wasted no time and immediately bolted to his right and behind another pedestal. As he did so, shots rang and bullets chased after him, creating shatters and holes along the far wall and floor.

Red X rested his back against the pedestal he hid behind and tried to calm his breath. _Okay, so it's safe to say that somebody's trying to kill me!_ Red X pulled some smoke bombs from his utility belt with his left hand and some shuriken with his right hand. _And my job is to make him regret it._

Red X slowly looked over the pedestal, and momentarily switched his vision to infrared. He saw another figure behind one of the other pedestals in the room with a rifle.

The figure peered behind the side of his pedestal with his rifle ready. A cloud of smoke erupted around him and three x-shaped shuriken whipped his rifle out of his hands. He instantly bolted to another pedestal for cover, but Red X left from his pedestal and sent more shuriken towards him. Most of them missed, but one nicked him in the calf muscle. The figure rolled on the ground and pulled out two handguns. He fired guns at Red X's general area.

Red X hid behind yet another pedestal, and gratefully watched as other examples of modern art were slaughtered around him. There was a break in the gunfire, and Red X assumed he was reloading or something. He pulled out an explosive x-shuriken from his belt, leapt from his hiding place, and threw it.

The figure ducked as the shuriken sailed past him, and hit a fire detector across the room. The shuriken exploded, causing sprinklers to rain down on them and protective cases telescoped around to protect the pieces of "art" in the room.

Red X suddenly appeared from wherever he was hiding, darting towards the figure with his feet sliding on the layer of water that had accumulated on the floor. He held up both palms and fired an x from each hand, which shot the two guns from the figure's hands.

The figure tried to kick Red X, and missed, and then they both backed off to get a grip on the situation. The sprinklers stopped raining. This was the first time Red X got a good look at his opponent.

Red X's opponent had a costume all his own. He wore a sleeveless trench coat on top of a blue body suit. A gold utility belt around his waste (because everyone's gotta have a utility belt) and a gold wedge added color to his wardrobe. A blue mask and a visor covered his face, and he owned a cache of guns and weapons.

"Hey there.", Red X said. "Do I know you?"

"No."

They began circling each other.

"You're Plunder, that bounty hunter from Keystone City.", Red X explained.

"So you've heard of me."

"Not much, but enough. So why are you trying to put a new whole in my head, as if I haven't already guessed?"

"Because someone paid me too, of course."

"Of course. Any chance you'd tell me who?"

"Please, Red X, you should know I couldn't tell you that." Plunder reached behind his back and pulled out a hunting knife. "Nothing personal, just business."

"Isn't it always?"

Plunder sprinted forward and stabbed with the knife, but Red X jumped back and dodged it. Plunder continued to slash and strike with his knife as Red X dodged and attempted to intercept.

Plunder stabbed with the knife, but Red X dodged it and grabbed Plunder's wrist with his left hand. Red X pulled him closer by the wrist and punched his face good and hard with his right fist.

Plunder dropped the knife and backed off just in time to be tied up by one of Red X's giant ensnaring x. Before Plunder could plan his next move, Red X sent one of his strongest sidekicks into his gut, throwing him off his feet and across the room.

As Plunder tried keep his head together, Red X walked up, grabbed him, and threw up against the wall. "Who hired you?!", the thief demanded.

"Not talking!"

Red and blue lights shined through the window. Police.

"Apparently our little tussle has aroused suspicion.", Plunder said.

"You mean all your gun fire.", Red X said. "You better tell me now, or I'll let them come."

"And arrest us both?", Plunder said, not backing down or loosing confidence.

"I'm not the one who's tied up. I can still get away. And don't think you'll be safe in jail."

"What makes you think I'll let them take me that far?"

Red X knew he had a good point, and the number of sirens and lights outside was only growing.

"What are you going to do now, thief?"

Red X began looking around the room, searching for an idea or an answer, thinking of a way out.

"Well?", Plunder taunted.

Red X punched him, and then pulled him tighter. "Listen up, you're about to witness my one good deed for the year."

Five minuets later.

The police entered the room in a swarm of professionalism, but Plunder was already subdued and Red X was gone.

Plunder was unconscious and plastered to the wall by some sort of red goo and a note was attached to his chest. Soon the police chief and his assistant came to investigate, and the police chief took the note down and read it aloud.

"Dear police, happy thanksgiving. Here's your turkey. Love, Red X.", the police chief said. He had a large build due to too many long nights depending on coffee and doughnuts to keep him awake.

"Red X?!", the assistant said. He was a lanky young man, well dressed, and trying his best to rise through the ranks of Jump City's Police Deportment.

"Yeah… That's odd."

"Yes, it is, sir. Why would a thief bring us this guy?"

"Well, yeah, but I meant how Red X called him our thanksgiving turkey."

"Sir?"

"It's June."

"Yes, sir."

-X-

"Red X… Was a mistake.", Robin said, as he had said to each one of his friends before. Only now he said it to Arrowette, who was at the other end of the conference table.

She had come to talk about Red X, the thief who took ten vials of zynothium from her city. She had asked the Teen Titans for cooperation and any useful info. She also told them a brief summery of what happened in Star City. The mention of the thief's name seemed to bring a sour note to Robin's face.

Something on Cyborg's wrist beeped, and then he informed everyone in the room that an alarm at the Jump City Museum of Modern Art had gone off. Starfire volunteered to investigate. Robin said it was just as well; he wanted to speak to Arrowette alone.

So then the rest of the team left, and even though Robin knew they all had their ears pressed against the door, he told Arrowette that the gentlemen thief she'd met was a mistake.

"What?", she asked.

Robin took a deep breath. "I created the identity of Red X, and the suit, as an alias so I could get closer to a criminal named Slade. Ever hear of him?"

"Who hasn't? I've even heard of him all the way over in Star City.", Arrowette said.

"Yeah, well, my plan didn't work. I almost lost my life, and my friends. I'm a lucky person. A few months ago, I saw someone running around in that suit, calling himself Red X. I hadn't even known someone broke into the tower and took it. Who knows just how long he had been using that suit before we found him?"

Arrowette stared into her cup of coffee, thinking about Robin's words.

"He's my responsibility. My fault. My problem to correct.", he said.

"But you've got a lot on your plate already.", she argued. "Couldn't hurt to let me help."

"I appreciate the offer, and I understand where you're coming from. Really, I do. But Red X was my mistake."

"If it's any consolation, he's not _that_ bad a guy. He sorta saved my life, back in Star City. Adonis got me in a bad spot, and he was gonna rip a new hole in my neck. Red X saved my life and helped bring down Adonis."

Robin seemed somewhat shocked by the news at first, but his shock died away soon. "I'm not entirely surprised. He saved my life once too, along with the lives of the rest of the titans and the entire city."

"What?", Arrowette asked sharply.

Then Robin recounted the events at Chang's Observatory.

After hearing of Red X's act of heroism, she sat pondering for a long time, holding her cup of coffee. Robin sat across from her, ever patient for a reply. Perhaps he was thinking of what she'd say next, or maybe pondering a deeper level of Red X's character.

In a mix of sorrow, confusion, and hope, Arrowette spoke. "So maybe he's not such a bad guy."

Robin nodded in solemn. "I admit, he could be worse. A lot worse."

"So then he's not much of a priority for you guys?"

"Well… We do have other problems."

"So why not let me chase 'em down?", she said.

Robin said nothing as the thought.

"Look, I respect that he's your chase. I do. I know what it's like to need to prove something to someone. But he stole form _my_ city too."

Robin was silent.

"So what if I chase him for a bit? Does it really matter who brings him down?"

"He can be dangerous."

"Be he won't kill. We both know that. He saved both our lives, remember?"

"Do you think that gets him a free ride?", Robin said, eyes narrowing.

Arrowette couldn't believe what she was doing. She was arguing with Robin, the Boy Wonder, the leader of the Teen Titans, and the adopted son of the scariest man alive.

But she wasn't about to back down now. Superhero's aren't doormats, and she wanted to be a superhero her whole life, she'd worked too hard. Her aim was so accurate, that by the time she was three years old she could throw three darts at a dartboard and hit the bull's eye. Of course, half of that was the result of her obsessed mother, but that was another story.

"I think it means we shouldn't throw stones at him just yet. We owe him our lives after all.", she said.

"So does that one or two good deeds make him a hero?", Robin spat back.

"Maybe, maybe not. But prisoners, murderers, and felons in the Justice System get time taken off their sentence for less then what he's done. A lot less."

Robin's eye's widened a tad in realization. Then he regained his composer and rested his chin on his gloved hand in thought.

Arrowette waited for what seemed like hours. When he was done Robin finally spoke.

"Deal."

-X-

It was raining all over Jump City that night.

Red X opened his bedroom window, crawled in, retracted his grapnel and line, then closed and locked the window. Beads of water slid down his body and black cape and dropped to the floor. Red X just stood there for a moment in his bedroom, facing the doorway, his back to the locked window.

Water crept down his mask as he intensely stared into his own thoughts. He didn't even care that he was creating a puddle of water at his feet on the floor.

He looked over to his pet rock in its cage. "Tonight, someone tried to put a nice new hole in my head. How was your night?", Red X asked the rock.

The rock said nothing.

Red X bowed his head in solemn. "Someone wants me dead… Who could hate me that much? I mean, I know I don't have too many real friends… Okay, so I have no friends."

The rock was quiet.

Red X perked his head up again. "Oh yeah, there's you. Least I have you."

The rock said nothing.

"His name was Plunder. He's a bounty hunter from Keystone City, and tonight he tried to ambushed me and put me in the obituaries."

The rock spoke volume with its silence.

"Hey, wait a minute… Why a bounty hunter? If someone wanted me dead, why not send an assassin? Someone like David Cain or Deadshot? Unless… Whoever hired Plunder wanted him to capture me, not kill me. Of course, that doesn't explain why he was trying to pump me full of lead. Wait!"

Red X searched his person all over, and found a rubber bullet lodged in the Kevlar lining of his cape.

"He didn't know that the suit's bulletproof! He wasn't trying to kill me!"

The rock was stunned silent.

"And that would explain…" Red X set the rubber bullet on his dresser and removed a wallet from his utility belt.

"I found this wallet on Plunder before I left him for the cops. He bought an airline ticket, under the name Marv Wolfman, for a flight back to Keystone City three days from now. But he only bought one seat! That means he wasn't planning on taking me anywhere."

The rock said nothing.

"And that means whoever hired him to hunt me down must be here in Jump City!"

Red X realized something.

"And it means I need physiological help because I'm talking to a freaking rock!"

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews. I'll keep updating this as often as I can.


	4. Surprises, Surprises

"Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies." -Woody Allen

………………………………………………………………………………...

She was a queen in her own eyes.

Blackfire said her goodbyes to her date outside in the hallway, and walked into her lush condo on the lower west side of Jump City. The condo on the sixth floor featured a plush couch and a nice view of the city's skyline.

She wore a skimpy short white dress, and her exotic earrings sparkled as brightly as her bracelet. Her legs were long and smooth, her dark hair was silky and soft, and she boasted proof that Mother Nature was kind to her.

Young, rich, and attractive.

Oh yeah, and she was a super-powered Tamaranian who was seeking temporary refuge on Earth after being exiled from her home world when she tried to take it over.

"Hey, babe.", Red X said.

Blackfire twirled around with a bright starbolt in hand, eyes glowing bright purple with a glare.

"Whoa! Easy there, it's just me." Red X had been leaning against the doorframe leading into her kitchen, but he raised his hands in defense.

Blackfire smirked and powered down. "Well, well, if it isn't Red X, the elusive and debonair thief of this city. I was wondering when I'd see you again."

"Same to you, babe. So how'd you afford a swanky place like this anyway?" Red X crossed his arms over his chest. His cape draped over his shoulders and floated behind him like a living shadow as he walked into the living room with her.

"Oh, you know. Conning people mostly. A different kind of thief if you will.", she said.

"Gold digging?"

"Not specifically. Old money, new money, any money will do."

"Like your date just now?"

"He bought me these earrings didn't he?"

Red X chuckled to himself. "Only in our circles can you start talking about stuff like this like it's the weather."

She smirked. "So to what do I owe pleasure?", she asked.

"You're pretty popular among these parts, right?"

She laughed. "I should hope so."

"Know of anyone who really hates me?"

"You mean aside from the cops?"

"Yeah, aside from them and every museum owner around.", Red X said.

"Hmm… Well, Chang hasn't been a fan of you lately."

"Nah. He's doing time, in Black Gate or in Steel City somewhere."

"Why the sudden interest?", she asked.

"Someone wants my head on their wall."

"Oh yeah, I heard about that Plunder guy."

"You heard already? Wow, you are popular."

Blackfire smiled and walked over to a mirror, where she started taking off her jewelry. Red X found himself staring at her while her back was turned, but he eventually snapped himself out of that gaze, thankful for a photographic memory.

"Ya know, I might have heard of someone who could've hired that guy. But what's it worth to you?"

"About as much as this." Red X produced a fine diamond necklace from a compartment in his belt. The sparkling stones of the necklace shined like a beacon from where Red X was, and Blackfire could've sworn she saw her reflection in the smooth 24 karate gold surface.

He never saw the conceited, yet stunningly attractive, girl's eyes open so wide. "It's beautiful…"

Red X handed her the necklace, and she immediately spun around and put it on in front of the mirror. "This isn't stolen is it?"

"Nope. But I did buy it with money from stolen jewelry."

She smiled at her image in the mirror and how the necklace matched the curves of her face.

"Ya like?", he asked.

"Oh, I am loving this!" She turned around and looked at Red X with such glee, like he had granted her only wish. "Okay, Red X. You just bought me!"

Red X raised an eyebrow, and suppressed the urge to make a comment.

"Ever hear of a guy named Al Melee?" She sat on her plush couch, crossing one smooth leg over the other. Her index finger fondled her new necklace around her thin neck.

"Yeah, he's a major arms dealer around these parts.", he said.

"Rumor has it you're the one who emptied out his safe last month."

"Um... Maybe."

"Well, apparently he's mad.", she informed him.

"Why should he care? Those jewels and things where insured, right?"

"Yeah, but he was planning on using those right away on a Columbian deal. He may have made a little money with the insurance, but he lost a chance to do big business."

"The Columbian's are dangerous. I may have saved his life.", Red X said.

"Tell him that."

"Maybe I will." He walked behind the couch that she sat on as he thought to himself. "So, aside from Al Melee, anyone else you know of hate me?"

"No one in the mob that I can think of."

"What about the rest of the supervillian community?"

"Actually, most of them don't mind you."

"Really? Even after I helped the Titans back at Chang's observatory?"

"Thing is, Chang never told the rest of us about his little doomsday plan. We could have been vaporized too. It's called a professional courtesy!"

"Go figure." Red X supposed that meant that no one liked Slade either, he never warned anyone about the time he took over the city with Terra. Even though Red X had no doubt that Slade was smart enough to have hired Plunder, he knew that Slade wasn't the man after him, on the count that Slade was dead.

Blackfire was still resting on the couch, fiddling with her new necklace.

"Well, thanks again, cutie. But I better get going.", he said.

"So soon?", she asked with a cute smirk.

"I've got work to do."

"All work and no play can make Red X a very dull thief." She stood up from the couch.

Red X looked over his shoulder as he walked towards her open window. "I don't think we have to worry about that."

"Don't be such a stranger, X." She walked across the room to stretch her legs. "Stop by sometime."

Red X chuckled. "How many thieves can say they got that invite?"

Blackfire looked behind her shoulder at him. A breeze had blown into the condo through her open window, and it blew Red X's cape away from him, making it dance in the wind. "Not many.", she said.

Red X wasn't sure how to reply to that. You can never be too sure with this girl. You could never be sure if she really liked you, or if she was just wanted to suck your bank account dry. And Red X had a very large bank account.

She turned her head away from him, and walked towards the kitchen. She asked, "So what would it take to see what you really look like underneath that costume?"

"About the same as it would take to see what you look like under yours."

"Hey!" She whipped around, but he was gone. The window was left open and the drapes around it were blowing in breeze. "Better luck next time, I guess.", she said with a wry smirk.

-X-

11:23 pm.

Red X perched on the rooftop of Blackfire's condo complex. His thoughts drifted back towards Blackfire as he digested the images he'd saved in his photographic memory bank. The unusually warm wind blew his cape around him and made its tatters dance like a majestic living creature.

He reached in to his belt, and withdrew a grey and black version of the Titan's own communicators. Instead of a "T" painted on the cover, he had painted on a red x, of course. Actually, it was based off of the one he stole from Robin himself.

Red X had used Robin's to access the Titan's mainframe computer at the tower, and before the Titans could change frequencies or update codes, he already had an invisible backdoor into their network. Long story short, with his version of the communicator, tied into their communications network, he also could monitor any of the Titan's location at any time.

Wicked sweet.

Red X opened the communicator, and found that all the Titans where safely far away in their tower. That meant he was free to move about the city out of the shadows, for the most part. He put away the communicator, withdrew his grapnel gun, and swung off.

11:26 pm.

The monorail always slowed down as it turned the corner of King Street and State Avenue at this time in the week. On Saturdays it turned the corner three minuets later.

Red X was perched on top of a street lamp just over the monorail's path, and when it came to pass, he grabbed up the edges of his cape. He jumped off the street lamp and used the cape as a parachute to slow his fall so he could land safely on the monorail.

He landed on its surface with a thump and released his cape, the wind blowing it hard behind him. Red X narrowed his eyes as he determined how long until he reached the other side of town.

"Wow!"

Red X turned his head sharply and saw Arrowette standing a bit away behind him.

"Really, wow. Imagine my surprise to find you on the same train as me!", she said, leaning on her bow.

"Imagine _my_ surprise to know you're not in Star City!", Red X said. He stood up, turned around, and faced Arrowette. The wind blew his cape around him and covered him as if it was protective of its master.

"Seems life's full of surprises.", she said beaming.

"So… What's a girl like you doing on a train like this?" Of course, Red X would have to use a line sooner or later.

"I was looking for you, ironically enough."

"How flattering… And why am I so popular all of the sudden?"

"Because you stole from _my _city."

"Oh, yeah. That."

"Yeah, that."

"Hey, I saved your butt from Adonis and let you take the credit for taking him down.", Red X said. "Doesn't that entitle me to one or two acts of forgiveness?"

"Nope." She smirked.

"Well… Guess I'm all out of luck then."

"Better luck next time…", Arrowette smirked.

"That's my line.", Red X grimaced. Then he quickly removed his grapnel gun, aimed it at rooftop, and fired.

"Wait!", she yelled.

But Red X was already in the air and swinging away, slipping even further away from Arrowette as the monorail moved away.

"I really need to get me one of those grapnel things…", she lamented.

-X-

12:15 am.

"This better be good! Why on God's green earth did you feel the need to wake me up?!", Al Melee yelled at two of his lackeys as he walked down the hall in his pajamas.

"Uh… Sir, there's a visitor for you.", one lackey said.

"So reschedule!"

"Sir, I don't believe this is the kind of visitor you reschedule...", the other lackey said.

Al Melee seemed confused, but quickly opened the doors to his office and saw Red X. And not only that, Red X was sitting in _his_ chair at _his _desk! With his arms crossed and his feet on the desk even!

"Hey, Jeeves. How's it going?", X asked.

Al Melee grinned his teeth and clenched his teeth at the sight of the arrogant young brat. "You! You've got some nerve coming in here…"

"No guts, no glory.", Red X dismissed with a wave. Then he took his feet off the desk, stood up, and walked out from behind the desk. "I'll get down to business quick. Did you hire Plunder?"

"Who?"

"Plunder. Bounty hunter from Keystone City. Tried to put my head on someone else's wall. And I'd like to know who paid him to do it."

"And what makes you think I know?!"

"Word on the street is you have it out for me."

"You robbed me!"

"You don't have any proof of that ya know. Besides, the Columbians are dangerous."

"And rich! And I'm not! How could I have hired Plunder when I can barely pay my own men?"

"Don't know, but you're a smart guy. I'm sure you figured out some new way to sell something to third graders."

If Red X tried hard enough, he bet he could see a vein on Al Melee's forehead. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"

Red X pointed a thumb behind him at the open doors leading to the balcony of Al Melee's office. "Door was unlocked."

"No it wasn't!"

"Well… It is now."

That vein was clearly visible now. "You had better give me one good reason why I shouldn't off you." He snapped his fingers and his two lackeys withdrew their pistols.

Then, in a fraction of the blink of an eye, two arrows hit the lackey's pistols and they flew from their hands.

Red X turned around sharply and saw Arrowette sanding on the railing of the balcony outside. Her bow was clenched in her hand, her other hand still hovered just behind her head after she let those last two arrows fly.

"You! What are you doing here?!", Red X asked with wide eyes, honestly surprised for the second time tonight.

"You weren't the only one who heard about Al's grudge or about Plunder. Guess I figured Al probably hired him too.", she explained.

"Well, yeah. But I meant, how did I still get here before you? You were still riding the monorail and I had to get here on my own. So how'd you get here after me?!", Red X asked.

"I, um… I sorta got a little lost.", she forced out with embarrassment.

Red X just stood there quietly. Then his shoulder and chest started shaking as he tried desperately not to laugh.

"Hey! I'm new in this town!"

Red X was trying so hard not to laugh. In the end, he decided just to turn around and continue hassling Al Melee before he lost any more intimidation value. "So…" He paused for a second to swallow another laugh. "Who hired Plunder?"

Suddenly, the door to the office was kicked down and beam of blue energy came from beyond the doorway. The beam hit Red X, knocking him to the ground, and ice crystals quickly formed around him and completely froze him in an icy tomb.

Al Melee and his lackeys had dove to the floor for cover and safety. Arrowette had almost fallen off the balcony railing in surprise, but kept a steady foot down on the balcony floor. Red X continued to be suspended in a giant piece of ice, as if he was one of the works of art he'd stolen.

Beyond the doorway was a haze of mist. A foot stepped out from the mist, and the rest of the person followed soon after. It was Plunder again, holding some sort of freeze-ray rifle in hand.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to update.


	5. X's And Arrows

"There used to be a real me, but I had it surgically removed." -Peter Sellers

………………………………………………………………………………...

Plunder stood at the doorway with rifle in hand and the most lucrative of intents in mind. Arrowette stood shocked and surprised on the balcony, one leg still resting on the railing. Al Melee was on the ground with his two lackeys, wondering if his office would turn into a war zone. And Red X was frozen in a giant piece of ice, as helpless as any painting he ever stole.

"Plunder! What are you doing?!", Al demanded.

"Nothing person, Mr. Melee. Just business as usual." Plunder's gaze shifted over to the only other obstacle standing between him and a paycheck, Arrowette. "You're better-off running away, little girl.", he said.

Arrowette reached behind her to withdraw an arrow, but Plunder instantly raised his rifle.

"Hold it! That'd be a really stupid mistake."

Arrowette froze in her motion, and she stared at Plunder with a deep scow.

The x on Red X's palm began to glow red.

"Sorry, girly. But I can't have you super-hero types getting in my way. Excuse the cliché, but I'm gonna have to put you on ice!" Plunder pointed his rifle at her head and his finger coiled around the trigger like it was a snake.

Red energy enveloped Red X's from, breaking and cracking the ice into pieces. Two beams of red energy shot from his hands and the ice exploded away all around the room. Chunks of ice flew through the air like missiles.

Red X, free from his frigid tomb, fell to his knees on the ground and thankfully breathed in the fresh warm air.

Arrowette immediately shot an arrow, which destroyed Plunder's, freeze ray.

"X! You're alright!", she screamed.

Red X instantly bolted from the ground, fired his grapnel gun at the trees out side, tackled Arrowette, and swung off with her over his shoulder. Holding on to the grapnel gun with both their weights after being frozen was one of the greater struggles of Red X's day. He swung with her down to the courtyard and driveway outside of Al Melee's home, which was complete with a large fountain and trimmed hedges.

The two landed on the concrete and Red X retracted his grapnel and line then put it away.

Arrowette pushed away from the thief's grasps and landed on her feet. "What was that for?!"

"For saving your butt!"

"I can handle myself thank you! I was the one saving your butt!"

"Oh, yeah right! By the way, how's Adonis?!"

Two nets shot from Plunder's net launcher, and both Red X and Arrowette where impaled by one. They where both sent to the ground where the net's anchored.

"Oh great! Now look what you've done!", Red X said, only half meaning it, the other half was joking.

"Me?!", Arrowette defended.

"Will you both just quit it?!", Plunder said. He haphazardly dropped the net launcher and with drew a cylinder from his over coat. "Last time I made the mistake of underestimating you, X. A few toys from my employer should make sure that doesn't happen again." The cylinder extended into a bo staff, and each end of the staff glowed with energy. He raised the staff and charged forward.

"We're in big trouble here!", Arrowette said.

"Speak for yourself!", Red X activated his x-themed rotary blades and sliced through the net instantly. Then he swung his legs up and out of the hole he made and flipped backwards out of the net just before Plunder swung his staff downwards. His cape escaped the staff by a thread's width.

After hitting nothing but ground and net, Plunder swung the staff up again and attacked Red X. X blocked with his blades, similar to the way he fought Robin back in the tech company's vault. Only this time, Red X didn't expect any moon men to come busting in.

Plunder continued with his attack on Red X, but he wasn't nearly as good a fighter with that stick as Robin. He swung the staff, and Red X blocked it with his left rotary blade, and retracted his right rotary blade. Then he palm-punched the staff with his right hand and fired an energy blast from his palm, which broke the staff in two and sent Plunder back to the ground.

"Come on, man. Better idiots then you have tried, and failed, to catch me.", Red X said as he retracted his other rotary blade too.

"I disagree." Plunder reached into his over coat with both hands and withdrew a blaster pistol in each hand, aimed, and fired.

Red X saw it coming and jumped away in time to avoid the blasts and reply with a volley of micro-serrated shuriken.

Plunder barely rolled on the ground in time, most of them shredding his coat to tatters. He continued his blasting.

Red X ran for cover, rolling, jumping, and running in a zig-zag pattern to avoid being shot. He landed and withdrew shuriken in both hands, then launched the left hand's volley and then the right's.

Plunder quickly got up from the ground just as the shuriken landed on the ground and exploded.

Knowing he wasn't down and out for long, Red X ran and took cover behind a parked limo on Melee's drive way. X took a moment to catch his breath and withdraw another shuriken.

"Look out, X!", Arrowette screamed.

Something caught the corner of Red X's eye. A single grenade landed on the car's hood and bounced off and landed again next to him. Red X's eyes widened considerably and he bolted off.

_BOOM!_

Time seemed to slow down as Arrowette watched the limo exploded and it's pieces sent flying. The red x-shaped shuriken that Red X had just been holding landed near her, dented, burned, and mangled.

Al Melee came running down to see what had happened and stood speechless at his front doorstep.

Plunder stood there, quite proudly and arrogantly, the bright flames enhanced his silhouette. He turned around to Arrowette and said, "Looks like I blew him up. Whoops."

Arrowette's attention snapped back to reality with a terrible glare. She immediately with drew a sharp bladed arrow and cut the net. Stepping out the cut net, she was already loading three trick arrows into her bow. Her eyes danced with an exotic sort of flame, as if hell had no fury to compare to her.

Plunder was less then impressed. "Come on, girl. You think those arrows can hurt me? This suits lined with Kevlar, it's bulletproof."

"Let's hope it's not fireproof!" Arrowette released those three arrows, which flew towards Plunder like raging demons. They explode just before they reached him, sending him flying back. She took out more trick arrows, and continued the onslaught, one arrow after another.

Net arrow.

Freeze arrow.

Explosive arrow.

Sharp arrow.

Gas arrow.

Sharp arrow.

Explosive arrow.

Arrowette breathed heavily, burning as much of her rage as she could. How good each pull of the bow felt, how exhilarated she was with each explosion. Red X may have been a thief and criminal, but he didn't deserve to die! But she couldn't keep this up much longer; she was running out of arrows.

A large cloud of smoke and flames occupied the spot that Plunder once stood. Then he stepped out from it slowly with shoulders squared.

Arrowette's jaw dropped.

His suit was burned and damaged, his over coat was absolutely gone and only burning tatters remained on the ground as it fell off him. His stare was a cold as ever.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Ouch.", he said. His last grenade was clenched tightly in his gloved hand. He pulled the hand back and cocked it for a throw.

Arrowette grimaced and pulled out a sharp arrow and pulled it into her bow.

Plunder flicked the pin out of the grenade with his thumb and threw it… to the side and at Al Melee.

Al stood frozen, probably not even getting a complete grasp on what was happening.

The grenade flew towards him, spelling certain destruction.

Arrowette had less then a second.

She whipped her body to the side, raised the bow, aimed, and released.

The arrow flew out of her bow.

_Please work…_

The arrow flew.

The grenade fell.

_Please work…_

The arrow hit the grenade, knocking it away from Al where it exploded. Lucky, Plunder hadn't been using grenades with shrapnel. A cloud of smoke and flame erupted, and when it cleared, Al Melee was still in one piece. He was on his back on the ground further away, with no eyebrows. But he was alive!

"It worked!", Arrowette yelled in triumph. "I did it!"

Plunder pressed the barrel of a .45 caliber pistol against the side of her head. "Yes, you sure did.", he said.

She gasped shortly and her eyes widened. Plunder was pointing a gun at her head. This was the end of her short superhero career. Suddenly, the world seemed so much bigger. So big, and she was so small. Would anyone miss her? Would the people at the Elias School for Girls miss her at all? Did anyone miss Red X for that matter?

In the end… Does anyone miss anyone?

Suddenly, a red shuriken and an x-shaped grapnel darted through the air. The shuriken knocked the gun out of Plunder's hand before he knew what hit him. Then the grapnel flew over and wrapped once around him. The line on the grapnel was pulled taunt and Plunder was dragged back instantly.

Arrowette turned in shock and surprised.

Red X stood atop the statue in the middle of Al Melee's fountain. His cape was more torn and tattered then ever before, and it blew wildly in the wind as if it matched its master's fury. Pieces of his suit where torn, revealing the Kevlar and circuitry below. He braced his arms and legs as his grapnel gun dragged Plunder ever closer on the ground.

"Red X!", Arrowette screamed.

"I'm back, baby!", he shouted to no one in particular.

Just before Plunder reached the fountain, he managed to untie the grapnel but he still tumbled on the ground.

Red X jumped off the statue as the line came closer to retract. For a spit second, he was mid-air with his line and grapnel dancing around him, and the skull and x on the bottom of his shoes where clearly visible as he began to descend into a drop kick.

Plunder rolled to the side as X's foot slammed into the ground with bone crushing force. The grapnel finished retracting into its gun when Plunder got up and managed to kick X when he was recovering from the fall.

Red X fell to the ground, dropped his grapnel gun, and fired a giant x around Plunder that blew the bounty hunter off his feet. Plunder got back up to his feet quickly, just in time for a net from one of Arrowette's trick arrows to wrap around him further.

He snapped his attention to her.

She just smiled and said, "Had one more arrow left."

Plunder was about to make some remark, when X tapped on his shoulder. Plunder turned his face and stared into the glowing red palm of Red X.

"Nighty night." Red X fired a beam of energy that sent the bounty hunter flying.

Plunder landed on the ground unconscious, tied, beaten, and defeated.

Red X lowered his hand, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he walked over to Al Melee, passing Arrowette without a word. He loomed over Al after he maid his way over to him.

"Look… Captain Sunshine over there is taking a nap, so I'm gonna ask you and I'll only ask one more time. Who. Hired. Plunder?!"

Al Melee, shocked from what he would consider two or three near-death incidents in one night, felt a bit more talkative then he did earlier. "I- I don't know who it was! It was just some guy in a space suit!"

Red X's eyes widened a bit. Arrowette walked up next to him with a matching expression on her face.

"A guy in a space suit?", she said.

"Yeah! Had a bunch of… I don't know… Hazmat guys with him!"

"Hazmat? He had a Hazmat team with him? As in radioactive?", Red X asked.

"Yeah! But there was nothing radioactive. Least I don't think so. They're where his henchmen or something!"

"Did he have a name?"

"No! He wanted me to recommend him to Plunder. He was actually supposed to bring you here to my place to hand ya over to the guy. But he skipped town when ya caught Plunder back at the museum!"

Red X and Arrowette where quiet. They both turned around without another word to Al, as if they where long-time partners who knew exactly what each other where thinking.

"Guy in a space suit… Ya think it's the same guy… The same guy who hired Adonis?", she asked.

"No clue."

-X-

Much later…

Arrowette opened her heavy eyes in a daze, and wondered what had just happened. She stared into space for a moment as her blurry vision cleared. It was a little dark, no one had bothered to turn on the lights and the only illumination came from the moon through the windows. She lay on a couch and Red X sat on the coffee table across from the couch with his back towards her, with a first aid kit next to him.

Her eyes widened and she gasped.

He looked back. "Morning, sleeping beauty. Agh!" Red X pulled something out of his side, from a damaged portion of his suit. "Shrapnel bites…"

She sat up quickly, fighting off panic. "What- Who- What's going on?!"

"Don't remember?" Red X looked back to his side as he tried to remove as much of whatever happened to be embedded in his suit.

"What happened?!", she demanded.

"Well, what's the last thing you remember?"

Arrowette thought for a moment. "Well, Plunder came, we beat 'em... Then we learned about the guy in the space suit again… And… That's it."

"Well, I'll give you a quick summary. Police units came and started shooting knock-out gas at us."

"So where am I?"

"My place."

"Why?!"

"The gas was starting to affect you, so it's not like you could've gotten away on you own. And I wasn't gonna leave ya on some rooftop or alley way. I'm not that low."

"You could've just left me there with the police."

Red X pain no heed to that. He closed up the first aid kit and walked off to his kitchen.

Sensing no danger from the thief, Arrowette stood up and began to have a look around.

Against the wall rested a big screen TV and stereo system, the best that stolen money could buy. Arrowette browsed over Red X's library of classic movies, and his seemingly infinite collection of kung fu movies. Even movies she never knew Bruce Lee played in. On the coffee table where X had been sitting, she noticed a vase. She didn't know if it was a Ming Vase or not, but it was surely expensive, and it was filled with Jolly Ranchers and other candy.

A poster of Bruce Lee rested on the wall in Red X's private little dojo. On the far wall of that dojo, multiple Ninja weapons where proudly hung. She began to venture out of the living room and into the kitchen area where Red X washed his hands and put away bandages.

A flat-screen monitor was hung against the wall next to the kitchen. Arrowette didn't know that it was hooked up to hidden cameras outside the building, activated by motion sensors. An entire cabinet rested against another wall near the front door and the empty coat rack. The cabinet was filled with stolen items and personal trophies. One manikin head inside the cabinet was lucky enough to be wearing a priceless and stunning diamond necklace. Another odd item in the cabinet, Arrowette could only describe as a bat-shaped boomerang.

A few books that Red X had been reading rested on top of each other on the kitchen counter. _Confessions Of A Master Jewel Thief_, by Bill Mason, was at the top of the small stack.

Arrowette looked up at Red X as he stood in his kitchen watching her. She knew that thievery had made him one the richest young men in the world.

But one thing Arrowette also noticed was that there was no warm or loving thing in the apartment. There was no pictures hanging on the walls or standing on a table. There where no postcards, gifts, or love in this home. The only thing there was to Red X's little world, was Red X.

"Well, welcome to thieving and conniving central. Wadda ya think?"

"It's real…", Arrowette search for the words.

"What? Decrepit? Immoral? Evil?", Red X suggested with a little spite.

"Lonely.", Arrowette said.

Red X didn't say anything. He'd expected another lecture but he didn't expect her say that.

"Is this it? I mean, ya got a lot of cool stuff but… Don't you have any friends?"

"Nope. Just dust bunnies and my pet rock." He walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room. "Well, if you're feeling all rested up, I guess you should be getting on your way."

"What?"

"Can't expect me to keep a pet super hero, can ya? Might ruin my bad guy image."

"Pet?!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.", X waved it off nonchalantly.

Arrowette searched for a way to keep things up. "In case you haven't noticed, you're a thief, and I'm supposed to be tracking you down! You're under arrest, or something!"

"You mean after I saved your life for the third time?"

"Second! No, I mean- Agh!"

Red X crossed his arms and waited for her to finish reaching the end of her wit.

"Hey, you still haven't told me where this place is?", she said just before she could pull her hair out.

"I told you. My place."

"And where is that?"

Red X chuckled. "Come on, ya think I'd really tell you that?"

"And how'd you expect me to leave? I'd figure out where this is as soon as I jump out the window. What where you planning on doing, knocking me out and leaving me somewhere else?"

"Actually… Yes."

Arrowette raised and eyebrow and had a bizarre look on her face that seemed to read "What the…?". But she actually said aloud, "And why should I trust you?"

"Because I've saved your life the-"

"Oh will you give up with that?! Give me one _new_ reason I should trust you!"

Red X paused and narrowed his eyes. "Cissie King-Jones.", he said slowly.

Arrowette's eyes opened so wide Red X thought they might fall out of their sockets. She stopped breathing and her heart stood still. Red X… knew her real name.

Few people really get the depth of what it means when a foe knows a superhero's "secret identity". He knew her name… He could get her address. He could stalk her, and she'd never be safe ever again. He could do something cliché yet unthinkable like attack what few people she had left who counted as family. He could sell out her identity to any villain or gang who'd just love to know. He, or someone he might sell that information too, could interrogate her for every bit of privileged superhero-related information she knew. Her life might as well be counted as over.

Cissie King-Jones, we barely knew you.

"Who… How do you know that?"

"Remember that tracer I stuck on your ankle that night we went toe-to-toe with Adonis? Well you must've not realized it was there till a while later. I kept track you after I left, just to make sure you weren't following me. After you dropped off Adonis to the police, you stopped at a place and stayed there for the rest of the night. That place was an apartment rented to one Cissie King-Jones, I checked. And you look just like Cissie King-Jones."

Arrowette's face went completely pale.

"But I wasn't sure, till just now I mean. You okay? You look like you're about to pass out."

Arrowette was silent for a moment. "Do you… Do you have a bathroom?", she asked, with hardly any breath at all.

Red X pointed across the room to the bathroom door. "Right over there. I'd be insulted if ya didn't."

"Thanks.", she said faintly. Then she walked over to the restroom.

Red X began passing the time by picking lint off his cape's shoulder. Then he was surprised when he heard Arrowette vomiting up everything in her stomach.

Ten minuets later.

Arrowette sat one X's couch again, clutching a glass of water he'd given her. Red X sat in a chair next to the table and couch. He was quiet, waiting for Arrowette to finishing piecing things together. Maybe he shouldn't have told her he knew who she was.

"You feeling alright now?", he asked, breaking the silence.

Arrowette was quiet, staring forward into space.

Red X waited.

Coming to life again, Arrowette took a deep breath in and set the water on the table. "I give up. What do you want, X?"

Red X raised a confused eyebrow. "Huh?"

"What is it? What are you gonna blackmail me for?"

Red X understood. "Nothing."

Arrowette looked up a bit confused.

"Look, your average villain might jump for joy at this, but I'm not average. I think it's a cheap, cliché, low blow to blackmail someone for their other identity. So, nothing. You don't got to sweet it."

Arrowette blinked a few times. "Wh… What?" The girl was raised with the stereotypical good guy and bad guy rules. She never really learned about the grey side of things. And Red X was big giant gray blob when it comes to the question of right or wrong.

"What's there to get?", Red X asked, spinning a little sarcasms into his voice. "I'm not gonna black mail you, play doomsday with the city, or attack your", he mock gasped, "loved ones."

"But… But why not? You pretty much got me by the throat here."

"I told you. It's a low blow. You want to arrest me, catch me on the streets. If I got a problem with you, I'll take it strait to your face. That's how it works, sweetheart."

Arrowette didn't quite seem to fully comprehend that logic.

"You really don't know how things work on the streets, do you?"

Arrowette did something Red X didn't quite expect. She smiled and gave a quick chuckle. Then she looked down with that faint smile and stared into her reflection in her glass of water. "Yeah, I sorta lived a sheltered life. As I'm sure you _already_ know... My mom, Bonnie King, was…"

"The original Miss Arrowette.", Red X noted.

Arrowette shrugged it off. "Yeah, the wanna be sidekick to Green Arrow. Didn't work out to well for her. Well, she got carpal tunnel syndrome. I know, the irony. So she started training me, her daughter, to be a better archer and superhero then her. Eventually the state got involved and decided she wasn't mother material. Wonder what was their first clue? Anyway, I found myself at the Elias School for Girls. Eventually, I decided I'd be a better hero then my mom ever was."

"So… You're not stepping out of her shadow, you're downright outshining her.", Red X said.

Arrowette had another faint smile and chuckle. "I guess you could say that." She looked back up at Red X, feeling that he was more of a new friend rather then an enemy, and she didn't know why. "What about you, masked man? Where do you come from?"

"Think I'd tell you? Just because I know who you are doesn't mean I want you to know me."

"Come on. Just don't mention any names. What harm could it do?"

"It would help develop a profile of me and narrow down a list of suspects.", Red X pointed out promptly.

Arrowette rolled her eyes. "I wish I was that smart."

"Robin is."

Silence.

Arrowette was solemn again. "He said… Robin said you where a mistake."

Red X perked his head up a little. "A mistake?"

"You know why Robin made that suit, right? To get closer to Slade? Well, it apparently was a bad idea. So, he thinks the whole thing was a mistake, his mistake, including you. Maybe that's why he wants to catch you so bad."

Red X looked down at the suit he was wearing, touching his gloved fingers to the damaged fabric over his chest. "Well, one man's trash is another person's treasure." He looked back to Arrowette.

"Does everything have to be a line or a phrase with you?"

"Maybe."

Arrowette smiled and sighed. "So, what ya gonna do about Plunder and the guy in a space suit?"

"Well, Plunder's been carted away by the police by now. And they'll pay extra care to keep him this time. It'd be pretty embarrassing if they lost another city's criminal twice."

"Yeah, it would be."

"As for Mr. Space Man… I don't think he'll resurface for a while. If he's skipped town over this like Al Melee said, then I won't be hearing from him for a while."

"And what if he just shows up some night."

"You mean like you or the Titans do?"

"Good point." An awkward silence fell again. Then Arrowette spoke again. "So… You're really not gonna tell anyone who I am or do anything?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

Arrowette paused. "Thanks… It… means a lot."

"Eh, don't worry about it. Just do a better job at hiding it next time."

"Will do! So, um, what now?"

"Getting kinda late. You'd better get going now."

"And how do you expect me to go without know where here is? You gonna knock me out?", she joked.

"Actually…" Red X quickly pulled out an aerosol can and sprayed. Then Arrowette felt real sleeping, and passed out on the couch.

-X-

Arrowette woke up the next morning in her hotel room's bed when the light shined through the window. Her bow and arrows rested against the far wall, and a note rested on the nightstand next to her. It was undoubtedly from Red X. She lazily reached over to grab the note, and then laughed when she read it.

"Better luck next time…"

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to update. It might take me a while sometimes to update, but don't worry, I always will. Thanks for the reviews.


	6. A Friend In Need

"Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway." –Elbert Hubbard

………………………………………………………………………………...

One month later.

"Finished yet?"

"Keep your snot-munchin skirt on, X. I'm almost done."

Red X leaned against the workbench, hunched over watching Gizmo work in his chair at the device on the bench. Gizmo's workshop never changed that much, aside from getting more and more cluttered with parts and tools. It wasn't a particularly important device Gizmo was making for the young super-thief, just a few parts to help X splice into a museum's security grid. But hey, to Gizmo, a paycheck from X was a good as any crud-sniffing paycheck.

"Hey, Gizmo, have you- Oh, X. I didn't realize you where here.", Jinx said.

Red X and Gizmo turned around and saw Jinx standing in the doorway. She was wearing a dark purple dress with a short skirt.

"What in the world are you doing in that?", Gizmo asked.

"Hey, I thought I'd try it out. What do you think?", she looked at X.

"It, um, looks good on ya. Matches your hair.", Red X began, not sure how dodge this one.

"It looks like a piece of snot, okay? Now leave us alone, we've got work to do!", Gizmo yelled before he and X turned back around to finish their work.

Jinx grumbled, and with a wave of her hand, the device exploded.

But this caused both Gizmo and Red X to stare with a lost daze at the sparking hunk of rubbish. They both slowly turned to Jinx.

"He was building that for me…", Red X said.

Jinx, who honestly thought it was just one of Gizmo's science projects, blushed deeply.

X sighed. "Don't worry about it Gizmo, no extra charge. I'll come back when it's finished later."

"You got it, X." He turned round to give a repeating death glare at Jinx.

That's when Mammoth appeared behind Jinx. "Hey, guys. We just got a call from some anonymous space man."

Red X perked up immediately and paid attention. "Space man?"

"Yeah, he wants to know if we'd be willing to carry out a hit."

"Who's the barf-spitting client this time?", Gizmo asked.

"Didn't say his name. Just wore a space suit."

"We're not hitmen. Besides, we don't work for anonymous clients.", Jinx said.

"Who was the hit for?", Red X asked.

They all looked at X, and Mammoth said, "Some hero girl from Star City. Shot arrows. Looked kinda like a cheerleader."

"Arrowette…", Red X said.

"Yeah, but how'd you know?", Mammoth asked.

"Um, lucky guess." He turned back to Gizmo. "I'm in no rush to get that finished, so take your time. I gotta jet.", he said with his typical smirk. Then Red X ran out of the room passing by Jinx and Mammoth.

As he ran past, his cape brushed up against Jinx and she almost reached out to touch it with her hands but X was already gone.

"Wonder where he went off to in such a hurry?", Mammoth said.

-X-

Red X sped down the highway on his motorcycle. The heavy bike was a prototype to an even better version he had on the drawling board. It was similar to Robin's, but a bit more streamline, black, and had his x-logo painted on it.

He clutched the handle tightly as he burned rubber down the road.

_So… Flash Gordon's back is he? Why would Space Man put a hit on Arrowette? Does he think he with her out of the way he'll be able to get to me?_

Red X made a sharp turn down the street and continued to break the speed limit.

_Unless… It's a trap._ Red X cursed under his breath and continued to speed off.

-X-

The next night, Star City.

Cissie, or Arrowette, was hard a work writing in her journal at her desk in her bedroom. Balancing the work of a hero and a person was harder then TV shows made it look like. But she had her priorities strait. Playing hero came first and foremost. She was able to use her archery skills to pay her rent, both as an instructor and winning contests or bets. There wasn't much room for school or friends left, but that didn't really matter anymore.

"Working hard?", Red X said.

Cissie spun around in her chair quickly, scared by X's sudden appearance. "Geez! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Red X, who had been perched in her now open window, stepped down and stood up in her room. "Sorry about that. Old habit."

Cissie sighed. "So what's up, X? Why in the world you stop by to see me?"

"You've got problems. We need to talk."

Later…

Red X leaned with his arms crossed against a wall in Arrowette's hallway. She was in the bathroom.

"So… The guy in a space suit put out a hit for me, huh?", she asked from behind the locked door.

"Yeah."

"Oh well." She opened the door and was completely dressed in her costume.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Time for patrol." She walked back into her bedroom and over to the open window X had crawled through.

"They don't send ordinary street punks after superheroes ya know. He sent Plunder after me; he'll send someone after you. Someone good.", Red X argued as he followed her.

Arrowette withdrew a grappling-hook arrow from over her shoulder. "I wouldn't ask a thief to understand." She loaded the arrow into her bow and aimed through the window for the building across the street.

Red X's x-shaped grapnel flew past her anchored to that same building.

Arrowette turned around and saw X holding his grapnel gun and waiting. "You're coming?", she asked.

"Like I'd miss out on a good fight?"

Arrowette was glad. "Thanks, X."

Arrowette fired her arrow, and they both swung off.

-X-

"So what are we doing here again?", Red X asked.

Him and Arrowette were perched on the edge of a rooftop; carefully watching a restaurant that was a little-known gang, hang out.

"Waiting…", Arrowette said without taking her attention away from the restaurant. "Naturally, I'm sure I can count on you to back me up."

"As long as it's not another thief, I don't got a problem taking down anyone who gets in my way.", Red X explained.

"And what if it is a thief?"

"Depends on whether they're good or not. Punks who jack car stereos give 'thief' a bad name if ya ask me."

"'Thief' is a bad name.", she informed him.

Red X said nothing.

"Ya know what I like about you, X? You're a sparking conversationalist.", Arrowette said drolly.

Before the thief could make a sly comeback, a scream was heard coming from a near by alley. The thief and the heroine ran to the other edge of the rooftop, looked over, and saw two men with knives mugging a lady stupid enough to walk down a dark alley at night.

"I'll take care of this. I'm board.", Red X said and dived down.

"I said give me your money now!", one of the men yelled.

"Heads up!", Red X yelled.

The lady and the two men looked up and saw Red X, cape spread to slow decent, plunge towards them. The two men both backed out of the way, scared as if some demon had descended from hell to eat their souls, or something like that. Red X landed in front of and facing the lady, his cape spread on the ground around him.

The thief turned vigilante bolted at man on his left, grabbed the wrist holding the knife, and elbowed the man in the jaw before he even knew what happened. A clean knockout. The man fell to the ground.

Red X turned around saw the second man run away, so he withdrew two special new x's from his belt and tried them. _Been meaning to try these out._ He hurled them like twin Frisbees, and they flew towards the man, past the man, and each attached to a side of the alley. When the man ran between them again, an electrical field was activated and stunned the man until he fell unconscious to the ground.

Red X smiled smugly. "Ya know that had to hurt."

Before Red X could make another action, the lady had wrapped her arms around his caped shoulders and thanked him from the bottom of her heart. X blinked a few times. Being _appreciated_ was something new.

"Uh, don't worry about it.", he said, trying to pry her off. He was worried for a moment that he'd have to find a crowbar, but she soon let go and looked at him.

"Take care." Red X stepped back into the shadows, pressed the button on his belt, and disappeared.

Back on the rooftop, Arrowette had watched the whole thing. Red X reappeared next to her, and she greeted him with warm smile.

"What?", Red X questioned the smile.

"Ya know, you make a better hero then a thief."

-X-

Two muggings, a bank robbery, and a car jacking later…

"Busy night.", Red X commented.

"Not really. About average for a big city like this."

Red X and Arrowette stalked from on top of another rooftop. Red X looked a little surprised by Arrowette's last comment.

"Could've fooled me.", X said.

"That's because you're always causing the crimes, not cleaning up after them."

"So does that make you society's glorified janitor?", Red X purposed.

"Hey!", she responded.

Something caught the corner of X's eye, and he held up his hand to silence her.

He looked around the rooftop, examining each shadow and every corner.

"What is it?", Arrowette asked, taking a cautious arrow out and pulling it into her bow.

"Not sure yet." Red X flicked a shuriken in his hand and held it up at eye level, ready.

Then X caught a movement out of the corner of his eye again – something coming at him fast – and in instinctively jumped out of the way.

A grey splat of goo hit the ground harmlessly, but a second splat caught Arrowette's feet.

"I can't move!", she yelled as she tried to move free, but the goo held her boots tight the rooftop.

"And I know why…", he said as he looked at his opponent.

Arrowette looked up with Red X. On top of a radio tower on the next rooftop over, supported by his eight jointed legs, Fang watched his prey.

"You wouldn't happen to have a can of Raid on ya, would ya?", Red X asked Arrowette.


	7. Done Playing Dumb

"It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better… while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more." -Woody Allen

………………………………………………………………………………...

Red X slowly reached behind him and withdrew a small vile and handed it to Arrowette, who was busy trying to pull her feet out of the goop.

"Here.", Red X said.

"What's this?" She took the vile.

"It's a universal solvent. I keep it incase I need to dissolve one of my sticky X's."

"Will it work on this crud?", she referred to the goop around her trapped feet.

"Hope so."

Arrowette opened the vile and began pouring it on the goop.

Red X stared down Fang, the half-spider half-human creature with no clear explanation as to why he had a giant spider for a head.

"You're going down, X.", Fang said.

The thief held up a hand and made a becoming-motion. "Bring it on, Charlotte."

-X-

Jump City.

It was cold on the docks of Jump City. Brother Blood stood on the ledge of a walk way late at night, waiting impatiently. How dare anyone make the Headmaster wait?

He gritted his teeth. "If that buffoon doesn't show up in five minuets…"

"Relax old man. I'm here alright."

Brother Blood turned around. "Old man? You call me out here, make me waste my precious time, and then you call me an old man?!"

Out of a shadow stepped a slim young figure, but he was covered from head to toe in a space suit. Not a typical space suit, like those huge and bulky white ones, but those new thinner and slicker suits. The suit was colored purple however, and Brother Blood's reflection shinned in the helmet's mirror-like visor.

"In case you haven't heard, I have a very large project I'm about to launch that I could be overseeing."

"Then I'll make this quick for ya.", said the young, and slightly arrogant sounding, man. "I want to hire one of your goons. I have a red stain I want removed, if you catch my drift."

Blood smiled. "Well, I'm glad you've been impressed by my students, but they're all quite busy at the moment with a…" His smile turned more into an evil smirk. "…School project."

"So is that a no?", the space man demanded.

"I'm afraid so. Besides, if your 'red stain' lives anywhere in the city, he'll be gone soon enough anyway."

"What do you mean?" The space man probably raised an eyebrow in confusion beneath his helmet.

"Nevermind that, my boy. But if you don't want to get waterlogged, you might want to skip town tomorrow. It's opening night for the student's project." Blood chuckled. "It'll be a blast."

The space man said nothing, but the gaze of his reflecting visor pierced the soul.

Blood looked back at a boat that hung out in the bay. "Sorry to cut this short, but I really must be going now." He motioned for the boat to come, and its captain obediently started its engines and drove forward.

The space man was not happy at all. He couldn't afford to let this old man destroy the city; that would ruin everything. He wanted to defeat Blood now but knew he couldn't. Besides, he wouldn't want to soil his hands on such rubbish as Blood. He was better then that.

As much as the space man dreaded the thought, he'd have to tip off some pathetic "hero" about this. No, not the Titans; he hated them almost as much as he hated Red X. Maybe he'd tell some other loser like Aqualad. Yes… That would work.

The boat pulled up and Blood jumped on with more agility then a man his age should have. "But perhaps we could do business again later. What was it you said your name was?"

"None of your business.", the spaceman said with spite.

-X-

Later.

Fang returned home (Killer Moth's temporary home in Star City) through a set of sliding class doors with a slight pant in his breath. A few bits of red goo clung to his spider legs and an arrow or two was stuck in the back of his leather jacket.

"Fangy-Poo!!!", Kitten exclaimed and jumped from her seat on the couch and hugged her boyfriend.

"Hey, baby."

"Well?! Did you squash that arrow girl like a bug?"

"Um… She had some… Help…", he slowly confessed in fear of her.

Kitten blinked a few times before fully understanding, then her face turned red with rage. "What?! You didn't get her?! Ugh- You are… AGH! Who?! Who could'a been enough to make you run?!"

"Me.", Red X said.

Fang and Kitten both looked over and saw Red X and Arrowette in the corner of the room. Killer Moth was caught in one of Arrowette's net-arrows like a bug in a butterfly net.

Both Fang and Kittens eyes widened with surprised.

"Ya wanted us… Ya got us.", Arrowette said with a mischievous smirk.

"Let's talk.", X said menacingly.

-X-

20 minuets, 4 headaches, and a lot of rope later…

"You'll never make me talk! Do you hear me?! Try as hard as you want!", Kitten screamed at the top of her lungs as she sat tied up to a dinning room chair. "Just watch out! DADDY!!!"

Red X shot an x at Kittens mouth, and it clung over her like a giant pieces of duct tape.

"Thank you!", Killer Moth said, who himself was also tied up to a chair next to Fang. Fang was also tied up to a chair, and his spider legs were tied to an idle ceiling fan above.

"Yeah really… I was getting a headache again.", Arrowette said. "How can you put up with her?", she asked Fang.

"We've… We've been to couple's counseling."

"Get a refund.", Red X said. "Now, let's start over again." He loomed over Fang. "Who hired you? That space-man?"

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

"Forget that. Where is he?", X said.

"We already told you, we don't know. He contacted us electronically.", Killer Moth said.

"Oh, go chew on a curtain. I didn't ask you.", Red X said.

"Tell us what we want to know, already!", Arrowette said.

"I don't know where he is!", Fang repeated.

"Mmm! MmmMmm!", Kitten said from behind the x on her face.

"Ya know, X, something's been bugging me. So far the Space Man's been hiring pretty decent villains. Why's he hiring Fang now? I mean, he's no Slade."

"I'll have you know, my employer thinks I'm more then good enough to take care of you!", he said to Arrowette.

"Yeah! That's a load.", Red X said smugly. "I was there when the H.I.V.E. kids turned him down. If hey thought you were good enough then why-" His eyes suddenly widened.

"X?", Arrowette asked, picking up on the thief's strange vibe.

"It's a trap!", Red X said as he spun to face her, his cape whipping to life.

"What?", the surprised and confused look on her face was near-priceless, but Red X would worry about that later.

"Fang's bait! Space Man tried to hire H.I.V.E. because he didn't expect Fang to beat you, he expects someone else to come and beat us." He spun again to face Killer Moth. "Moth, who else knows you're here in Star City?!"

"Um, not many. Um, Control Freak, Dr. Light, Mad Mod…"

"Mad Mod? Wasn't he just in Jump City yesterday? Turning the whole place British?"

"Yeah, I left to come here just before he struck.", Red X said.

"He got lucky. Real lucky. Told me earlier this morning that he barely escaped and managed to hide out in Metropolis to get some more capital.", Moth said.

"Metropolis? That's pretty far away for an old guy to run. Why all the way to Metropolis from Jump City?", Arrowette asked.

"Besides, running to that town is like jumping into a frying pan.", Red X commented.

"Not if you have those hipno-wheel-things.", Fang said.

Everyone went silent and their eyes widened. Well, except for Kitten who was just as clueless as Fang.

"What? What I'd say?", Fang asked.

"Out! Everyone out, now!", Arrowette ordered.

"Why? What's wrong?", Fang asked.

Sudden, as if to answer his question, the house began to rumble. And then, in the blink of an eye an entire wall was gone, crumbling into dust. A flash of red, another blink later, the rest of the house was being tossed away like it was tissue paper. Dust and rubble filled the air.

When the dust began to clear a voice with a thick British accent could be heard. "Splendid, ducky! Quite splendid in deed!" Mad Mod's silhouette could be made out in the dust. But he wasn't what everyone was staring at.

Above Mad Mod, high in the air where the second story balcony of the house had been, SuperBoy hovered in the air, clad in his red and blue tights and a leather jacket. His eyes were a swirl of black and white. He was under Mod's control.

"'Ello, everyone. 'Ow do you like my newest pupil?", Mad Mod asked with a cackle.

"Red… Please tell me you have a plan.", Arrowette said to X.

The house barely even stood, it now hung open like a wound and was covered in rubble and debris.

"Panicing's at the top of my list.", X said.

"Not the plan I wanna hear!", Arrowette said.

"Then keep him busy." Red X then disappeared.

"What?! Busy?!" Arrowette looked at SuperBoy, who was literally the most dangerous thing she'd ever seen. "How am I supposed to keep him busy?"

The super powered boy floated there in the air and stared at Arrowette with a friendly grin. If he wasn't hypnotized, he'd probably be hitting on her right now.

A man after Red X's own heart… Except totally not.

"What are you waiting for?! Blow 'er to smithereens!", Mad Mod commanded.

Obediently, Superboy's eyes glowed a brilliant red. Arrowette instinctively dived for cover as Killer Moth's dining room floor was vaporized with a giant red beam of energy coming from Superboy's eyes.

Arrowette picked herself off of the dusty ruble on the ground and looked up shocked. Mad Mod laugh his old butt off, and SuperBoy just hovered there.

_He's holding back._ Red X hid in what was left of Killer Moth's kitchen, carefully tweaking a specific device. _If SuperBoy really wanted to, we'd all be vaporized by now. SuperBoy still has some control left, and he's holding back. That'll make this easier for me. Not that it'll be that easy to begin with._

"That was marvelous, ducky! Now this time, really blow 'er away!", Mad Mod called out.

SuperBoy looked Arrowette strait in the eyes, then his own eyes glowed red again.

Arrowette gasped, not sure what to do or even if she could dodge in time. Then, as if swinging to her rescue again, Red X appeared on top of the ruble next to her. He held up a small device in his hands, and pressed the button on it.

Suddenly SuperBoy grasped his ears in pain, throwing his head back and wincing his teeth. And a swarm of tiny moths, the results of Killer Moth's tampering with nature, swarmed from seemingly nowhere and acted as if driven mad by some unknown force.

Red X looked at the whole SuperBoy blew into the floor earlier; it led into Moth's lab, where many of the insane moths were coming from.

"What? What's going on?! Someone tell me!", Mad Mod yelled frustrated. "Never mind it, just vaporize them!"

SuperBoy kept his poor ears covered in an attempt to save them from the pain. He looked back down at Red X and Arrowette and his eyes glowed a brilliant red again.

"Move!" Red X grabbed Arrowette around the waist and dived into the hole with her. SuperBoy fired his laser eye beams just as they'd dived in, the beam burning the tips of X's cape but missing the rest of them.

When the dust and smoke from that blast had cleared, Kitten was missing her eyebrows. If only Red X could've seen that…

"Where'd they go?!", Mod demanded.

SuperBoy let go of his ears and the moths began to calm down and flutter off, as if the sores of their pain had suddenly departed.

"Find them! Vaporize them!", Mod commanded.

-X-

Red X and Arrowette ran down a service tunnel of Star City's sewer system. Moth had built an emergency exit off of his lab leading into Star City's sewer systems below. Soon X and Arrowette entered a larger chamber with multiple sealable entrances to various cannels and tunnels.

"Where are we?", Arrowette asked.

"Looks like some kinda valve point, to control water flow."

"Know it all…", she muttered under her breath. "What was that thing you pressed? That thing that made blue-boy and the moth's go crazy?"

Red X held up the small device. "High frequency emitter. I carried it with me to Star because I knew Killer Moth might be in town. Figured it'd come in handy."

"So why'd it make SuperBoy go crazy too?"

"Wanna know SuperBoy's dirty little secret? He doesn't have true super-strength or anything. It's hard to explain, but his powers are powered by conscious thought. Just like Raven, he has to concentrate at least a little to use his powers.", Red X explained.

"So his super-hearing picked up the high-pitched sound and it hurt his ears? Which kills his concentration so he can't use his powers?"

"Well, it weakens him. It doesn't completely knock out his powers." Red X examined the device. "But it won't take long for him to track us down, and this things not meant to be left on so long."

"Great!", she said sarcastically. "Then what?"

Red X looked at her, a plan already formulated in his brilliant head. "Find Mod. Destroy his cane." He handed her the high frequency emitter. "Take this for protection."

She took the device. "What about you?"

"I'll try to keep the junior boy-scout busy. Mad Mod wont' be too far away from him to give orders so you're job will be easy."

"Wait- You don't seriously think you can hold of SuperBoy do you?!"

Red X pulled out a smaller device from the back of his utility belt. "This one's meant for dogs and animals. I built it for Beast Boy, to keep him from changing into animals. It'll give SuperBoy, and any dog near by, a splitting headache too."

Arrowette shook her head. "X, you can't possibly think you can-"

"Go. I'll try to lead him out into the open where Mod will be easier to spot. On the streets above. I'll meet ya up there."

"X…"

"Go."

Arrowette was silent for a moment, but then reached up and gave Red X a quick kiss on the cheek.

It left X's eyes big and blinking.

"See ya up top." Arrowette ran off to find a ladder up to the surface of the streets above. "And be careful!", she yelled back as she rounded a corner and disappeared down another tunnel.

Red X was still blinking a few times, but shook his head to clear the thought from his head till later. If he was around later that is. He cleared his head, took a deep breath, and looked over what was about to become a battle field.

"Okay… Bring it on."

As if on cue, SuperBoy crashed through the solid brick and masonry across the valve center.

Red X decided he might as well start this. He reached into his belt and threw a few round spheres at SuperBoy, smoke bombs and explosive bombs. SuperBoy didn't bother to dodge, and they all hit him and exploded against the Boy of Steel. Red X continued throwing a volley of explosive shuriken at SuperBoy, which all impacted and exploded on target.

A cloud of thick smoke and gas surrounded SuperBoy. Twin laser beams from his eyes shot forth from the gas and destroyed the area Red X had stood at a second before.

SuperBoy clapped his hands together which cleared away all the smoke and revealed that Red X's body was not among the rubble where his eye beams had hit.

Suddenly, Red X appeared to SuperBoy's left and activated his high-pitch caller device. SuperBoy winced again, but in the blink of an eye had sprinted forward and grabbed Red X's shirt.

Much closer to the ear-splitting sound that only SuperBoy could hear, he winced in pain harder and threw Red X away behind him. X hit the ground with an, "Oof!", and rolled away like an unwanted rag doll.

Recovering quickly, Red X saw a tunnel above him with a ladder that led to a manhole up above. He quickly fired a beam of energy up with his left hand to blow the manhole lid off, then took out his grapnel gun and fired up with his right hand. The grapnel anchored and Red X flew upwards into the tunnel above.

SuperBoy flew towards the tunnel and looked up into it. But as soon as he got there a small but thick disk with a beeping red x fell in front of his face. SuperBoy stared at it in what seemed like slow motion as it flipped end over end with the red x on one side flashing.

Red X flew up the tunnel quickly, pulled by the grapnel, as the disk exploded in the sewer below. Flame peeked into the tunnel below him.

Red X soon got to the open manhole and climbed out of the sewers and onto the street. Retracting his grapnel and putting it away, Red X began to run down the sidewalk. People scattered at the sight of him, but he paid no attention to the fools and bigots.

_Gotta run, gotta think, gotta run and think. Where's Mod? He should be around here somewhere. Arrowette should be around her somewhere too. If she was smart she'd be perched on top of one of these buildings ready to sniper Mod's cane. I should be in her sights. It won't take SuperBoy long to catch up, and where is Mad Mod already?!_

"Hold it right there, ducky!"

_Well that finally answers my question._ Red X spun around on his heel and saw Mad Mod carelessly park in his Austin Mini.

"Ya know what I don't get about you, X?", he said as he poked his head out the sun roof.

"My dashing good looks?", X answered.

"No! It's how sometimes you can be a model student, pulling brilliant heist one moment, then be such a naughty little critter the next moment. What with helping the Titans and all."

"Oh, shove it ya old fart!", Red X pulled out some shuriken and held it overhead.

"Such a potty mouth. Well my star-student should take care of that.", Mod said.

Suddenly SuperBoy crashed through the road behind X, and rose high into the air. Every car with a driver still in it immediately backed up and clear away, the rest of them just abandoned their cars and ran on foot.

Red X slowly stepped more into the empty road, favoring open space.

"Teach him a lesson, ducky!"

SuperBoy picked up a car near by, bending its very frame with his grip, and held it over his head like a baseball bat. Its undercarriage faced Red X, it's fuel tank visible.

Red X put away his shuriken, and fired a blast from his hand at the fuel tank.

_KABOOM!!!_

Red X was blown back from the explosion and rolled on the ground. When the smoke cleared X saw SuperBoy hovering where he had before. Still under Mod's control, he took off his jacket, ruined from the blast.

"Oh boy…" Red X quickly reached for the button on his belt to make him disappear, but before he blinked SuperBoy was instantly holding him by the neck.

He effortlessly lifted X by the jaw on one arm in the air. He pulled X's face a little closer and stared closer at him. Red X activated the surface taser of his suit, sending a surge of electricity into SuperBoy, but it had no affect on the Boy of Steel.

"That's it! Tear him to pieces!", Mad Mob called out.

"I… Ack- I got a better idea!", Red X said. Then he slapped both sides of SuperBoy's head, leaving flashing X's on either side of his face.

_Boom!_

The x-mines exploded and surprised SuperBoy enough for Red X to slip from his grip. Red X instantly disappeared and reappeared further away and towards SuperBoy's right.

X withdrew two special shuriken and threw one at the fire hydrant across the street. The shuriken exploded on one of the hydrant's valves, spraying water all over SuperBoy. X threw the second shuriken, which had a beeping blue light, into the water's path.

The second shuriken exploded and ice formed in the water and traveled all the way to SuperBoy, in casing him a thick layer of ice. The ice even traveled down the stream of water and froze the hydrant.

Red X disappeared.

And of course Mad Mod had plenty to say about this, but no one was listening to him.

With the slightest twitch, SuperBoy broke free of his icy prison. He listened carefully for X's heartbeat. He couldn't make it out, but what he could hear was that agonizing blare from that high-frequency emitter on X's belt.

Red X sat in front a car catching his breath and planning his next move. Suddenly the car lifted up and flipped over his head, crashing on top of the next car in front of him.

Red X slowly turned around, and did a little friendly wave at SuperBoy. SuperBoy grabbed X and threw him around and at the brick wall of the bank they were in front of.

"Umph!" Before Red X could slide down the wall and slump over, SuperBoy had already grabbed X's jaw and pressed him against the wall. SuperBoy reached at X's belt and grabbed the high-frequency emitter. He snapped it apart in his grasp like a toothpick.

"Any other tricks, boy?!", Mad Mod called out.

"Ack- Just one…", Red X answered despite SuperBoy's grip on his jaw.

Suddenly an arrow hit the brick wall near them, the first and strong high-frequency emitter attached to the shaft of the arrow.

SuperBoy let go and grasped his head in pain.

"What…?", Mad Mod asked with a stupid look.

"Hey!"

Mod turned around in time to see Arrowette's heel slam into his aged face. Then Arrowette continued to give the old man a beating with a fury of kicks and a punch of two.

Mod fell off his Austin Mini and turned around to run, but instead ran into Red X's fist. Mod was sent to the ground with a bloody mouth again when the thief punched his lights out. Mad Mod opened his eyes and reached for his cane, but it was instantly pierced by an arrow; destroying the cane's control on SuperBoy.

Mad Mod quickly got up and sprinted away, but a blur appeared in front of him and he ran face first into SuperBoy's chest.

"Ya know…", SuperBoy finally spoke. "It's not very nice to hypnotize people."

Mod went pale and politely requested to go to prison now.

"Oh no you don't!", Arrowette rushed towards the old man and picked him up by his sweeter vest. Red X leaned against the Austin Mini, holding his side, while Arrowette questioned Mad Mod. "Guy in a space suit hired you, didn't he?! Tell me now!"

Red X raised an eyebrow, and determined that she'd watched a lot of action movies since he last saw her.

"I- I- I- Yes! I went to Metropolis to pick up SuperBoy here, and he contacted me. Told me that he'd pay me a pretty pound to squash you, said to expect Red X to be along. I figured, why not? After all, Star City is just on the way back to Jump City. I thought I'd get a little money in my back pocket before I used SuperBoy to squash the Titans.", Mad Mod explained.

"How'd he contact you all the way in Metropolis?", Red X asked.

"He had the Atomic Skull give me the message. I don't know how he knew I'd be in town. He's a rather bright young lad, that space man…", Mod said.

"Bright young lad?", Arrowette asked.

"Why, yes. He may have been in a nice purple space suit, but there's no mistaking a frame that small. He's just a lad, no older then him.", Mod pointed at Red X. "I saw him on the video disk that Atomic Skull gave to me. That's all I know, lassie, 'onest."

Arrowette let him go and shoved him to the ground.

"When I get back to Metropolis, I'll track down Skull, see if he has anything to say.", SuperBoy offered.

"Thanks. I'll need all the help I can get."

SuperBoy looked up at Red X. "Well, ya put up a pretty mean fight for a regular guy."

"Guess that should mean something, coming from you.", Red X said.

"But I'm gonna have to take you to jail now.", SuperBoy smirked.

"Sorry, Junior Boy Scout, I don't do jail." Red X threw some flash bombs on the ground and they exploded into a bright shining glare, which blinded everyone.

When the flash subsided, Red X was gone.

-X-

Hours later.

"Ugh… What a day." Arrowette, in her civilian guise, opened the door to her apartment and entered.

"I'm tired of playing stupid.", Red X said as he stared out the open window.

"Agh! Geez! You scared the daylight outta me!", Arrowette said.

"Remind me to get ya a fruitcake for it.", Red X said unsympathetically.

"Nice to see you too, honey. How was work?", Arrowette said sarcastically.

Red X returned to the subject at hand in his mind. "I'm tired of playing stupid, of just waiting around while this guy plots his next move."

"Space Man? Well then what do you think we should do?"

"We learned something new about him today. He's young, and he likes the color purple." Red X turned around to face her. "And he's rich."

"What makes you figure that?"

"Hiring out villains isn't cheap, even if they all do fail. The guy's rich and has a lot of connections in Jump."

"Then we should head there."

"Same thoughts here. I'm going back to Jump to dig deeper. You coming?"

"Oh? Is the great Red X asking a commoner like me to tag along?"

"Don't read to much into it. You're already involved, might as well see it through with me."

Arrowette set down her backpack containing her costume, and leaned against the wall with a smirk. "Admit it. You're not half as bad as you'd have people believe. I bet you used to sleep with a night light as a kid."

"Are you mad at me? Did I hurt you in some way?", Red X said with mock-hurt and a raised eyebrow. "You coming are not?"

"I don't know, X… I got a case I'm working on I gotta see though. Nothing I can't handle, but…"

"Fine. I'll wire you some money and you fly to Jump when you're through."

"Serious? You can do that?"

"I steal paintings for a weekend hobby. I think I can scratch together some money."

"Wow, thanks. I mean, wait a min- It's stolen money! Sorta."

"Oh, cry me a river, Johnny Law.", X said with a smirk. "See ya in Jump."

"See ya in Jump."

Red X turned around, grabbed dup the edges of his cape, and dived out Arrowette's window.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Review!


	8. Finding You

"The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest." -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)

………………………………………………………………………………...

Red X stood before the Titan's huge computer screen in their living room atop their tower late that night. The large screen lit the dark room but cast Red X's long shadow far behind him. He typed away at the keyboard on the smaller computer consol below the large screen that doubled as a TV.

The screen was actually the central window of the Titan's living room, the images projected on the glass via advanced heads-up display technology. The end result was high definition images in a glorious range of colors.

It was there that Red X typed away as he accessed the Teen Titan's database. Cyborg had just left town for some reason, Robin and Beast Boy were out on patrol, Starfire was fast asleep in her room, and Raven was in a very deep state of meditation alone in her room. That meant that Red X had a chance to directly access their vast database undetected, which was not an opportunity he got too often.

He typed away and one "villain's" bio was displayed on the window-screen. It was Professor Chang's bio.

_Hmm… Gotta admit, the old fart was one of my first suspects. But he's not young or rich, or in a purple suit. He's just well connected and smart. And I use the term "smart" loosely. He's the dumbest smart guy I've seen in a long time._

Red X scrolled down and began reading some data on him. He wondered in the back of his mind if Robin had hand-typed the bio himself, or if he gleaned the data from other sources.

According to the file Red X skimmed over, he was born somewhere in China, spent a lot of time in Russia back in the old days (but not much is known about that), and currently incarcerated. But interestingly enough, he was scheduled to be moved to a new prison in Steel City.

That last fact interested Red X. _Why would they move him all the way over there, when he committed crimes here? Is it because prisons here in Jump are over crowded? Then again, what prison isn't over crowded?_

Then a fact donned on him. _Ya know… Al Melee mentioned something about Space Man having henchmen in Hazmat suits. And Space Man did hire Adonis to steal Zynothium from Star City when I did._

He stared at Chang's mug shot.

_Even if Chang's not involved, his goons could be. They would be trained to handle that Zynothium._

With a few nimble strokes at the keyboard Red X had used the Titan's computer to find out when Chang would be moved. He would be police-escorted to an airport pretty early in the morning, in a few hours.

_Maybe I'll wish him Bon Voyage… Now, back to the Space Man. He's young, rich, purple, and has a lot of spare time. Who like that could hire out villains? Not many. Let's start with mafia kids._

Red X searched the Titan's criminal database by age and known connections to organized crime. He only got a few results, but they were a start.

Red X could break into the prison, but Chang would be more vulnerable while he was being transported to the airport. That was hours yet to come, so Red X figured he'd pay visits to the mafia kids first.

He took Chang's and the other suspect's files and prepared to burn them on a CD that he could take with him and re-examine further at his luxury. Then he got an idea, and felt foolish for not thinking of it sooner.

_Ya know, it's not every day I get to access the Titan's database directly like this. I wonder what they have on me…_

But Red X didn't have much time to answer his question, so he just prepared to put his entire file on the disk along with the others. He could open it and digest it at his leisure later too, although he wondered if his curiosity would get to him first…

Meanwhile, Starfire's bedroom door opened and she emerged into the corridor. She wasn't entirely awake but wanted a midnight snack or a glass of water. When she was half way down the corridor she saw the faint light from the living room given off by the huge screen.

Red X removed the disk from the computer, complete and burned with all the information he wanted, and put it away somewhere unseen on his person.

"Robin? Beast Boy?", Starfire called out.

Red X jerked his head to the side at the sound of her.

"Have you returned from your patrol?", she said as she came closer to the end of the corridor and the entrance to the living room.

Red X quickly pressed a few important buttons on the consol, and the computer and the heads-up window screen deactivated.

"I fear I could not sleep tonight. Perhaps we could ingests the snacks of midnight, or watch the funny man with the large chin give a comedic monologue on his show of talk?", she said as she entered the living room.

She expected to find one of her dear friends, but to her disappointment, there was no one there. She was all alone in the big empty dark room late at night.

-X-

Ten hours earlier, Star City.

"You're what?", one of Cissie King Jone's, known to some as Arrowette, friends asked.

Cissie and the three other girls she called friends sat at a both in some fast food restaurant. She had broken the news to them that she needed to leave for Jump City again.

Truth be told, Arrowette (the name Red X associated with her more), understood very much what it was like to not fit in with people. Her obsessive mother had raised her since birth to be an arrow-launching machine. She couldn't lay claim to knowing an absolutely normal life, which bothered her at times. She wondered what she might have missed out on when she was younger because she was too busy shooting arrows. She also had quickly developed an underline tendency to challenge authority. Who else could so quickly defy a controlling mother like that by trying to be a better heroine? She was a perfectly nice and wonderful girl, but still had a tendency to be a tiny bit of a loner.

Nothing compared to Red X's loner complex, but still. I shrink might say she was a good girl trying to be a bad one and yet a very good one at once.

"How long are you going to be there this time?", one friend asked.

"Not sure yet, honestly."

"What in the world are you going back to Jump for anyway?", one friend asked.

"Yeah, there can't be that many archery conventions.", another friend said, referring to the cover story Arrowette used the last time.

"Why go back to Jump City? Except to see the Titans maybe. Admit it! You just want to see Robin.", another friend teased.

_Seen him? I've argued with him! And won!_ "What? Look, it's not that big a deal."

"So why you flying all the way to Jump again then?", a friend asked. Then an idea came to that girl's blonde head. "You got a boyfriend there… Don't ya?"

The other two girls leaned in with raised eyebrows, ready to devour any piece of gossip.

"What? No!", Arrowette denied.

"Come on, Cissie. You know you got a thing for bad boys."

"What! Shut up!", Arrowette said a little louder.

"I can't believe you kept this from us."

"So come on… Tell us…"

"Well…" Truth be told, Cissie King-Jones didn't have a decent alibi for going to Jump. She planned on telling her friends it had something to do with archery, but they had no grasp of that area of her world. They only knew she was good. They had no idea she could pierce the head of a lawn gnome a hundred yards away blindfolded. She needed an alibi they'd believe. And a boyfriend in Jump City was just the kind of thing these boy-crazy bimbos would believe in a heartbeat. "There… Might be a certain guy…", she said with a smirk.

The girls all smiled or laughed in their own ways.

"Ha! I knew it!"

"What's he like?"

"Yeah, girl! Spill it."

"He handsome?"

"Well…" _Come on… Think!_ "He's…" She tried to make her lack of ideas look more like shyness. "He's a good fighter. Great fighter. Wear's black. Rides a totally awesome bike."

"Sounds like a total hot-"

"Is he nice?", one girl interrupted another.

"Well… Actually, he's sorta a jerk, really.", Arrowette admitted

"Oh?"

"I mean, he's got it where it counts, or at least I think so. But he's kinda selfish, doesn't really open up at all, and really rough around the edges.", she explained.

The other girls all let out a collective, "Oh…"

One girl shook her head. "Tsk tsk tsk. Come on, Cissie. Don't tell us you've gotten caught up with some cold hearted snake."

"Well…", she avoided that for a moment.

"Girl, I can't tell you how many times I've seen this.", the redhead of the group said. "Tell me, do you really think he thinks about you when you're not around?"

"What? I guess so- Wait- What's that supposed to mean?" Arrowette wondered if the boyfriend-idea was more trouble then it was worth.

"He's your typical cold hearted, lying, manipulative, selfish, bad boy. Simply luscious, yes. But ultimately he's bad news for you, girl.", the redhead said again.

"He's not that bad.", Arrowette said.

"Tell me…", another girl began. "Does it ever seem like the world's a candy store and he's going trick-or-treating?"

Various images of him looting and having fun flashed in Arrowette's mind. "I really doubt he'd settle for a candy store."

Each girl either sighed or let out a moan of frustration. They all knew that kind of guy and regretted it.

"Girl, you can do so much better."

"Yeah. Your first date in how long and it's gotta be someone like that?"

"He's not that bad!", Arrowette insisted. "Okay, so he's got some rough spots, I'll admit. But he's got it where it counts."

"They all 'got it where it counts.'"

Arrowette found herself getting a little mad but didn't know why or pay much heed. "Oh yeah! Well when push comes to shove, I'm betting he's a better person then anyone else here right now!" Arrowette's eyes widened when she realized what came out of her lips. "Um… What I mean to say is…"

Every girl smirked.

"Oh no… Don't even say it. I swear, if you say it, I'll shove an arrow so far up your-!"

"Relax, girl. We're just messing with you.", one girl finally confessed. "But do be careful, all right? Bad boys are fun but they don't last. Don't get yourself too attached."

"I'll be alright.", Arrowette calmed down and smiled some what.

"So when's your plane leave?", one friend asked.

"I gotta be at the airport…" Arrowette looked at her watch and her eyes widened. "Ten minuets ago! See ya!" Arrowette jumped out of her seat, left behind her tray of fast food, and bolted out the door.

-X-

Hours after Red X broke into Titans Tower and escaped unnoticed.

It was a bumpy ride.

Chang sat on his bench on the inside of the prison transport van. His only companion, if he dared to consider him that, was an armored guard who sat across from him with rifle near by.

Bump.

Chang wasn't a very happy person at this point. He had tried to talk to his guard, boast of his prowess and great works, but the guard was uninterested in the boastings of a detained mad-scientists.

Bump.

Then, Chang heard something that made his head perk up a bit. It sounded like the raw but gentle hum of drilling. Chang looked at his guard, who was obliviously humming a tune to himself.

The guard looked up at Chang's curiosity. "Settle down, Dr. Frankenstein. You'll have a nice comfy seat on your plane in an hour or so."

"I'm not complaining about my seat this time.", Chang said, reminded of an earlier complaint he had had about his hard bench.

"Then what's wrong with you?"

"Nevermind, simpleton. Go back to humming your new age rap music to yourself."

"I'm humming Stairway To Heaven.", The guard said matter-of-factly.

When the conversation ended, Chang heard the slight hum again. Again, the guard didn't seem to notice the almost inaudible hum. For a moment, Chang wondered if his hearing was beginning to fade, or if the racket from the prison had left his ears with a faint ringing. "Probably nothing…", he muttered to himself silently.

_Pfft!_

"Ack!"

Chang's attention snapped back up at the guard who now had a thin dart sticking strait up out of his upper shoulder near his neck.

The guard grimaced for a moment, then slumped over on the floor unconscious with a thump.

Chang looked up at the ceiling, the only possible place a dart could have been fired from strait downwards. He found a small hall just above where the guard sat.

The humming had been from a small drill! And whoever drilled the hole shot the guard with a dart though the freshly bored hole.

A small light shined around the hold, and the light began to move away from the hole, cutting though the metal as it passed.

Chang stood up and backed away into a corner as the light quickly sliced a circle into the ceiling.

The light died, and a moment later the circular plate it had cut into the ceiling fell with a loud crash, caring a passenger…

Red X had jumped on the circular plate he'd cut, and now half-stood before Chang. His head was slightly bowed down and his cape was completely draped around him. He slowly looked up revealing the skull on his face and his eternal glare. "Hey, Slappy. Long time no see.", X mocked.

Chang was shocked at first, but then grinned with an odd sort of delight. "Well well well… If it isn't the bad boy who likes to play good boy."

"Only when it suits me, pops.", X stood up erect, opening his cape somewhat. "You were about to fry my favorite movie theater with that big telescope. Also, you had something that belonged to me."

"Yes… The Zynothium ore you and Robin both wanted so badly… But as you can see, I don't have any right now.", Chang said, talking so smoothly as he liked to do when not flustered by defeat. "Which leads me to wonder, why are you here?"

"Long story short, someone's been hiring out your old goons. I want to know everything you do about that."

"Hmmp. As if I'm still in the loop there. After you and Robin had me arrested, half my men disbanded and ran. The others were arrested too, and are not fighting their own legal battles. I've been out of contact with most of them. All thanks to you." Chang had lost his smooth talking dialect, displaying instead bitterness at X.

"Don't you mean… Thanks to us?", X referred to Robin.

"Yes… You and Robin…"

"So… Who was the highest ranking member of your henchmen?"

"He's in prison now too. Don't bother thinking he's been hired out. He's having as much discomfort with the prison food as I am."

"Yeah… I hear rice and ketchup day is a killer.", X commented. "How could anyone round up your old goons and hire them?"

"Why would you want to know?", Chang said. He had not lost his bitterness but also gained a witty edge to him. He was attempting to outwit Red X.

"That's not for you to know, pudgy."

"Don't treat me like a common moron, X. Even I heard about the word under the street. Someone wants you squashed and grinded up in a wood chipper, and frankly… I applaud."

Suddenly Red X reached out, his cape thrown out the way in the motion, and grabbed Chang by the throat. Red X leaned in real close to Chang's face, forcing Chang to stare into the ghostly whites of X's eyes.

"We're on a bumpy dirt road in the middle of nowhere. If no one saw me get on this van, no one will see me get off… With your head."

"You wouldn't!"

Red X held up his other hand and activated his new X-blade, a single spoke of the X on his backfist extended and deathly-sharpened. Red X slowly put the blade against the side of Chang's head.

"Trust me, that'll be a lot worse then a shaving cut." He paused. "Tell me how to get in contact with your goons!"

"Alright alright! Kyle Bensly…", he muttered the name. "No good slacker. He was the most popular of my remaining men. If anyone would be in contact with the rest of my men, it'd be him. But good luck finding him… He's long gone. Police haven't found him yet."

Red X leaned closer and narrowed his eyes. "Do I look like a cop?" He retracted his X-blade, pivoted on his footing, and threw Chang to the ground by the unconscious guard. "Kyle Bensly, was it?", he said after Chang had hit the ground.

Chang glared and snarled, which Red X took as a yes.

"Good. You don't got long till your Stormtrooper wakes up."

The guard began to stir, partially awaked by the loud noise Chang made when he hit the floor. Chang glanced at the guard.

"Guess that's my exit cue.", Red X said.

When Chang looked back up, X was gone. He did, however, catch a slight flutter of motion above him. He looked up just in time to see the edge of Red X's cape retreat beyond the rim of the hole in the roof. "Later!", X yelled back as he disappeared from sight.

The guard crawled back up to his hands and knees as he regained consciousness with a moan. "Ugh… What happened?" He looked up surprised to see himself on the floor next to Chang.

"Uh… We hit a big bump. I told you my seat was inadequate!", Chang explained.

-X-

Hours earlier, 218 miles outside of Star City.

Cissie King-Jones, still better known to Red X as Arrowette, sat in her plush and unbelievably comfortable chair in the first class section of the plane that was taking her to Jump City. She sipped at her sparkling spring water, which was given to her by a very polite and charming stewardess, and smiled.

_Wow. When X sends you on a flight, he really sends you on a flight! I didn't expect him to buy me first class tickets! This place is great. No wonder people in coach are always so miserable._

She set down her spring water and picked up a nice magazine to read. But she never really got any reading done.

_Although…. I wonder if I should feel bad about enjoying a first class ticket that was paid for with stolen money… Well, it's not like I stole it. And I'm going to Jump on business, not pleasure. Well, sorta. I mean, I'm going to help Red X find out who's been targeting him. I'm going to another city to help a bad guy find another bad guy. And I probably still couldn't catch either bad guy without the other bad guy's help. _

_Ya know, I'm tired of everyone calling Red X a bad guy. I mean, okay, he is a thief. But he also saved my life a few dozen times by now, and he saved all of Jump and the Teen Titans once before! Okay, so he's not a shinning pillar of morality, but still. He doesn't deserve to be burned alive at the steaks, right?_

I wonder if he's ever stolen because he was hungry? I don't think to many people could be mad a person who steals food to survive. Then again, X sure doesn't look hungry to me. He gave me first class tickets! A very comfortable window seat! Like it was no big deal. The guy's a super-thief, he ain't hungry. So why does he steal? Is there really that much thrill in it?

Cissie looked over and saw the businessman next to her busy typing away on his laptop. He was completely oblivious to the entire world and wouldn't even notice if the plane crashed. He had an unopened bag of peanuts on his lap, and Cissie loved those little honey-roasted peanuts.

Five minuets later.

Cissie smiled at herself with that very bag of peanuts safely in the clutches of her closed hand. The businessman never even knew she picked it right off his lap, and one of his status and assumed wealth could never miss that bag of peanuts. But beyond some delicious peanuts, she got something else. She learned something.

That was fun!

The challenge, the trill, the skill needed. Now, granted, it was just pick pocketing a bag of peanuts from an oblivious guy's lap. Red X could probably do that with his eyes closed and barely notice the adrenalin rush. But even if it wasn't a priceless diamond, it was still fun. Stealing was fun.

Cissie looked at the businessman, so busy and stressed about the work on his laptop. Then she learned something else, the difference between her and Red X. She felt guilty. 

Here this poor man was so stressed about whatever he was working on that he wouldn't noticed an amateur like her take a bag of peanuts off his lap, and she took advantage of that.

Suddenly, her little heist just wasn't worth it anymore.

"Here ya go.", she said as she handed the bag of peanuts to the man.

He looked up from his screen as if he'd never seen the bag before. "Those are mine?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, well thank you." The man took the bag and didn't even question how she'd gotten it. He looked back at his screen to catch up his thoughts, and then look back at her. "Ya know, I'm not gonna eat these. You can have them." He handed the bag back to her.

Cissie took the bag back with a smile and thanked the man. _Okay… So I'm not Red X… But at least I understand him a bit more now…_ She mused as she ate her lovely honey roasted peanuts.

-X-

Less then an hour before sunrise.

Red X stood in a tiny room full of supplies and quite a few x-themed weapons. It was one of his satellite headquarters. In favor of a hiding place or a quick re-supply, Red X had rented a few small apartments across Jump City and stocked them with supplies. It wasn't a pretty one-bedroom apartment, but it had a table with a laptop, cases full of supplies and tools he stashed away, a cot, and a few canned goods for snacks in case he was hiding out while the heat died.

Red X knew he was good. But he always tries very hard to let his prowess and thirst for bigger heists make him careless. That's why he had these little apartment bases, so he could hide or re-supply if the odds tipped against him for whatever reason.

Tonight, he just wanted a snack and a few more shuriken. He ate a candy bar or two, a granola bar, and drank some stocked away soda. Then he topped-off his belts inventory of gadgets and re-loaded the charges on his grapnel gun.

Then he crawled out onto the fire escape, locked the window, and then he took out his freshly loaded grapnel gun and was off again.

Later, Red X swung on his line and landed on the roof of a bakery. He retracted his grapnel and noticed how this bakery never stopped smelling delicious, like cinnamon and sweet rolls. Red X loved sweet rolls.

As silently as a wraith, he moved across the roof and leaned against a chimney. He knew Arrowette's plane had already landed. She had probably already checked into the hotel X made reservations in for her. And soon she'd meet him on this rooftop as they'd agreed on in an email.

So, with nothing else to do, X took out his communicator. He used it to deduce that no other Titans were near. Good. Then he used it to begin reading the files he stole from Titans Tower's mainframe. He immediately opened the file on him and read up.

…

"Hmm, they have me figured as the dingy-apartment type.", Red X mused. He might have to improve the security around his satellite bases.

…

…

"Well, can't use that fence anymore.", Red X mused as he read about how the Titans had a close eye on Lenny's pawnshop.

…

"Yeah, right. Like I'd do that!"

"Talking to yourself?", Arrowette said.

Red X looked up to see her on the rooftop. "Just reading my horoscope.", he said as he put away the communicator.

"Sure… You were probably downloading museum blueprints."

"Yeah. Normally I download illegally pirated music.", Red X said with a smirk as he walked towards her.

"Any news?", Arrowette said.

"Yeah. The Gotham Knights beat us in last night's game. But aside from that, I have a lead on our Space Man."

Arrowette leaned on her bow. "Oh, do tell.", she said amused.

"Space Man might be using Professor Chang's old henchmen. Makes sense since Space Man hired Adonis to steal Zynothium, and Chang's goons would be trained to handle that stuff. And Al Melee did say Space Man had guys in hazmat suits with him."

"Hmm… Yeah, makes sense. But how do we find them?"

"Now that's a bit trickier. The police and the Titans rounded half of Chang's men up, and the other half disappeared. But I know the name of one popular goon. Kyle Bensly. He might either be working with the Space Man, or know where the rest of his buds are."

"So now we find Kyle Bensly?"

"Yeah."

"Great, let's get to work.", she said with a zeal.

Red X chuckled to himself and dismissed the idea with a gentle wave. "Forget it, girly. I'm going to bed. I've been up all night breaking into places, questioning mob kids, scaring people… It's been a long night." Red X looked at the horizon and saw the sun rising. "Okay… It _was_ a long night."

"Aw… Is the big bad thief sleepy?", Arrowette teased.

"Yes."

Arrowette laughed, then said, "Okay, we'll pick up fresh tomorrow night. How do I contact you?"

"You don't. I'll come see you around sun set in your hotel."

"You're assertive."

"Well you can't just go and ask for a priceless painting, now, can you?" Red X reached down to his belt and pressed an unseen button on the compartment next to the buckle. 

The roar of a bike's engine echoed through the alleyways.

"Leaving already?"

"Relax, you'll see me in twelve hours. Why? You gonna miss me?", he walked with a brisk step towards the edge of the roof.

"Hardly.", she smirked.

"Yeah right. Ya know ya dig me.", Red X laughed then grabbed the edges of his cape and leapt off the building.

Arrowette ran over and looked over the edge to see X land on his bike, and drive off. He turned an alley's corner and disappeared out of sight, the roar of his bike becoming fainter and fainter.


	9. What Are Friends For?

"All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him." -Sun-Tzu

………………………………………………………………………………...

Cissie hummed gently to herself as she took a nice hot shower in her relatively nice hotel room, courtesy of a certain thief. She rinsed her blonde hair out in the hot water.

"Ahem.", a voice said.

Her eyes immediately opened wide and she pulled back the shower certain just enough to poker her head out.

Of course, it wasn't an actual threat. It was just Red X leaning against the bathroom counter top.

"Hey, bubbles. Get dressed, it's time to go to work."

"RED X! You scared me!"

"Sorry, I tend to do that to people, sometimes."

Her face, which had just been pale with worry, was now getting cherry red. Red X didn't know if her face was red with rage or embarrassment. "GET OUT!", she yelled.

Red X raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Okay, okay." He turned around to walk out, but glanced back over his shoulder in the hopes of catching a good view.

But as soon as he looked behind him, a bottle of shampoo, thrown by a very agitated Arrowette, impaled him in the face! "Oof!"

"Get out!"

-X-

It was cold, and it was damp.

Two of Chang's former henchmen stood guard in a tunnel deep beneath the city. They were just about ready to fall asleep when footsteps perked their attention. They raised their weapons but immediately lowered them when they recognized their visitor.

The space man.

But this time, the space man walked with a flowing purple cape wrapped around him. The ends of his cape weren't tattered like Red X's, but that was an improvement the space man was considering. The cape clung to his shoulders and collar like a loyal guard, but the rest of it flowed about him weightlessly in the air like a royal entourage. He'd cast aside the whole space suit, and this time wore a purple suit. He also wore a smaller masked-size helmet with a large skull-shaped visor.

He walked between the two men without taking his gaze away from the direction he was heading down the tunnel. He stopped just between them and asked, "How goes the construction?", without even looking at the guards he asked.

"Uh… All goes according to plan, sir.", one guard said, quoting what might as well have been called "The henchman's oath".

"Good. Are the rest of the men ready to intercept Red X?"

"Yes, sir.", the other guard said. "The rest are waiting at the location."

"I have a special job for you two.", the space man said.

The two guards looked a little surprised and curious.

The space man walked forward again, and after a few paces said, "Follow me."

Obediently, the two guards followed behind him, becoming as much of an entourage to him as his flowing cape was.

-X-

With a roar of the engine that sounded like an angry hornet, Red X downshift his bike and accelerated as he drove further up the hill. Clinging tighter to his back was Arrowette, who was about ready to say her prayers for fear of Red X's driving.

The road ahead was illuminated with the light from the bike's single skull-shaped headlight. The skull-light projected a light across the road in the shape of a skull, a fore boarding warning to all who dare oppose it.

Red X approached a steep curve on the little used road that was surrounded by trees and woodland. He took the curve sharply and quickly, and Arrowette winced and wrapped her arms tighter around his abdomen.

"Hey, can ya squeeze any tighter? I can still breath.", Red X asked her sarcastically.

"You drive like a maniac!", she screamed over the engine. Her blonde hair would be flowing in the wind, but X had been courteous enough to bring along a helmet for her, which she currently wore.

"I know! Fun, huh?"

"Where did you learn to drive like this?"

"Around.", X simply answered.

"Slow down or we're gonna crash!"

"O ye of little faith.", Red X said.

"Can you even see where you're going?", she asked, perking her head up a bit more.

"I can see everything." To him, the world was bathed in the shades of black and white and green presented to him by his mask's night vision optics.

"What happens if we do crash?"

"A force field bubble-thing would engage and we'd have a relatively soft and bouncy landing, while my bike was utterly totaled." He paused, then shrugged. "But, hey, you know what they say about any landing you can walk away from."

It would later be that very same force field that would prevent Red X from going splat on the pavement when his bike would be nearly totaled in a race with Ding Dong Daddy and Robin. But that was a story yet to come.

Arrowette cocked her helmet-clad head to the side a tad. "A force field? To protect us when we crash?"

"That's right."

"Where in the world did you get your hands on one of those? The Pentagon!"

"Gizmo.", he simply answered. "He used something similar not to long ago on the Titans when they invaded The Hive's first headquarters."

Arrowette rested against his back and sulked. "It's not fair… You have all the toys. And I'm the crime fighter!"

Red X chuckled. "Maybe if you're a good girl, Santa-X will get you something for Christmas." He throttled his bike and continued to speed away.

-X-

Kyle Bensly lived in a small cabin on the woodland outskirts of Jump City. Red X pressed a button or two on his bike's console, and suddenly the bike's loud roar quieted to a whisper. The headlight deactivated as well.

Arrowette was impressed with the bike's stealth mode. The only noise to be heard was the wind passing by, and even that died soon as Red X slowed down.

X parked the bike behind a large tree and he and Arrowette got off. She set her helmet on the seat.

Red X pressed a button on his belt and suddenly fractal armor plates on the bike extended. The plates slickly covered the bike's consol, wheels, and undercarriage. The handlebars even retracted into the bike's body and were covered by extending fractal plates. And to top it all off, the bike went "Beep beep" at the end.

Arrowette was quite amused and impressed by that, and turned to X with a wry smile. "That's your car alarm?"

"You think that's funny? Wait till you hear its novelty horn." He walked off towards the cabin and she followed with a chuckled.

Silently they approached it. Red X was a little impressed by her moderate stealth skills, but Red X moved like a wraith. With Red X leading the way, they soon penetrated the perimeter of the cabin and leaned against a wall.

"Now what?", she whispered?

"Grapnel gun's too loud.", he whispered back. Red X reached into his belt, past his cape, which draped around him. Then he removed a small grappling hook and cable. After a few swings to build momentum, X threw the grappling hook to the roof and it anchored.

Arrowette and Red X stole their way onto the cabins roof silently, where X put away the hook and cable then looked around.

"Come on, there's a sky light over here.", she said quietly.

"No, wait.", he said. Then he looked around at nothing in particular, as if sensing the air around him.

"What's wrong?"

"Not sure yet."

"Don't tell me your thief-sense is tingling."

Red X looked at her and gave her a mixture of a smirk and a glare. "Don't the hairs on the back of your neck ever stand when you're on a stake out? Right when something's about goes wrong?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Never underestimate a gut feeling." He draped the cape around himself tightly and looked around once more for anything. "Maybe it's nothing.", he said. "False alarm."

"Maybe your gut feeling was just gas.", she suggested.

Red X raised a wide eyebrow. "Did you just make a joke?"

"Hey, I've made jokes with you before."

"Not many." He walked past her, his cape disguising his footsteps and making it seemed as if he merely floated on air. "Up till now I've been the humor for both of us."

"Can we just get inside and beat up Kyle Bensly already?"

Red X knelt down beside the skylight, and inspected it for any sign of an alarm system. "Nothing. We're clean, I think." X removed a lock pick from his glove and quickly defeated the padlock on the skylight. He put away the lock pick and lifted the skylight's window plate just barely a centimeter. Red X listened for any alarm to sound, but none did. He listened for stirring within the house, but none came. He quickly scanned though the police radio receiver in his mask to see if any police would pick up a silent alarm, but all he heard was Detective Falco asking another officer if Maggie Sawyer over with Metropolis P.D. had sent some files yet.

Red X looked over his shoulder and gave Arrowette a thumb's up. Then he opened the skylight completely and dropped in. Arrowette slid herself over the edge, and Red X helped her down.

Inside there was no light, no sound, only darkness.

"Spooky.", Arrowette whispered to herself.

Suddenly lights were turned on, bathing the room in light. To Red X and Arrowette, it seemed as bright as the surface of the sun because their eyes were used to the dark. X pulled up his cape and shielded both of them from the glare as their eyes adjusted. As soon as the light no longer seemed so monstrous, X let go of his cape.

Both the thief and the heroine's eyes went wide when they saw at least ten of Chang's former henchmen standing in front of them. The henchmen all raised their weapons and pointed them at X and Arrowette.

"Oh this is bad…", Arrowette said.

The two stepped closer to each other, almost back to back.

Red X paused for a moment. "Arrowette… If we don't make it out of here in one piece… I just want you to know…"

Arrowette looked to X, anxious to hear what kind of confession the master thief was about to make. "Yes…?" He had her attention, and secretly, her hopes too.

"This is all your fault and I blame you."

"WHAT!"

Then Red X spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Above him. A silhouette of man standing past the skylight they'd just opened. Whoever he was, he even had a cape wrapped around him that gently blow in the night breeze.

"You have got to be kidding me, X!", Arrowette still ranted, blissfully unaware of the figure above them.

"As cliché as this is about to sound…", the figure said, and then Arrowette noticed him too. "At least we meet, Red X."

Red X's eyes narrowed in suspicious and mistrusting thought.

"I gotta admit, you're not easy to track down."

"Space man…", Red X slowly spat out.

"Congratulations. Barbara, tell him what he's won.", he said mocking a game-show host, then he suddenly turned around and disappeared out of sight.

"Oh no you don't!", Red X immediately whipped out his grapnel and fired. The grapnel few through the skylight and anchored somewhere outside it. Red X retracted the line and flew upwards though the skylight.

"X! What about me!", Arrowette yelled back, but it was too late, Red X was gone. She looked back down at all of Chang's old henchmen, holding their weapons ready.

Arrowette cursed silently, then pulled out a net arrow, drew it into her bow, and fired.

-X-

"Get back here you Star Wars reject!", Red X yelled as he ran down the hill in the woods. He'd hate to admit it, but he had lost sight of the Space Man past the trees and vegetation. Despite thermal and night vision, he hadn't caught any sign of the man who'd been hunting Red X for months.

Red X exited the thinning vegetation to find himself in a grassy field outside the wooded area. Red X desperately glanced around for the Space Man. Had he disappeared? Was this a trap he'd set up?

Then it donned on Red X that he left Arrowette with all those henchman. Red X barked out the worst curse he knew and turned around to run towards her again.

"Stop, my friend!"

Red X immediately stopped and spun on his heels around. A large man stood up from hiding in the tall grass, and it only took him one glanced at his silhouette. "Katarou?"

"Hello, X-san."

"What are you doing here!"

"Do not worry, my old friend. You're companion shouldn't be seriously hurt. He's not after her. He's after you… As am I."

Red X eye's widened. "You…? You're working with him!"

"Please realize, X-san, that this isn't personal. This is just business. You should understand that. Although, that's never of much consolation, is it?"

Red X was just plain to stunned for words. Everything he wanted to say kept tripping over itself in his mind, never reaching his mouth.

"I understand you are surprised, X-san. So I will clear some things up for you. I am merely here to fight you. Whether I win or lose is of no concern to my employer, who you call 'Space Man'".

Red X was quiet for a moment as his thoughts gathered. A gentle breeze blew past them, sending waves through the tall grass. "So… You're just here to stall me then, aren't you?"

"Perceptive as always. I'm pleased to know your skills haven't dulled."

"Arrowette!" Red X turned around, but a small folly of shuriken hit a tree Red X was about to run past. Red X stopped in his tracks and looked back.

"My skills have not dulled either. And pay no mind to your friend. She shouldn't come to any real harm."

"So if Space Boy's got all these henchmen, why does he need you?"

"Because you've defeated Chang's men before. I'm here to… Soften you up."

Red X silently glared back at Katarou over his shoulders.

They were both silent for a long time.

"Alright then…", X said at last. "I guess we're finally gonna have that spar we've always promised each other.", he turned around to fully face his larger opponent.

"Arigato, X-san", Katarou said and took a fighting stance.

"Wait.", X said. "Let's make this interesting…"

"You have a wager in mind?"

"If you win, you can hand me over to Space Man. But if I win… You tell me who he is and everything you know about him."

Katarou smirked. "Very well then…"

Red X took his his own modified version of Bruce Lee's Bai-Jong stance. "No weapons?"

"Only melee ones. No explosives."

"That goes double for you." Red X charged forward, his cape following him like a faithful ward.

_What is he doing? X-san would know better then to charge a larger opponent!_ But out of reflex, and not passing up a good opportunity, Katarou sent a fling kick out aimed for the thief's head.

Red X crossed his arms to block and grab the kick with an x-block (the irony of the name of that move always made him laugh). Then with Katarou's leg up, Red X kicked his standing out from under him and Katarou fell.

When Katarou looked up from his fall, he saw Red X jump up and above him with his leg pulled high above his head. Katarou rolled away quickly just as Red X's heel slammed into the ground in a furious ax-kick. Katarou rolled back onto his feet.

"I underestimated you!", Katarou said with a smile and punched.

Red X brought his hands back up to guard and slapped away the punch. Katarou swung his leg into a round kick, but X jumped back as the kick came an inch from touching his stomach.

Knowing that an opponent is usually off balance after an attack, and wanting to close the distance, Red X rushed back again and caught the unexpecting Katarou with a furious jab to the jaw. Then X punch him again with a left cross and then again with a right jab. Then X began a furious attack of hand attacks at close range. Palm jab. Crossing punch. Chop to the jaw. Ridge hand.

But X got too focused in his attack and never noticed when Katarou kneed him in the stomach till it was too late. "Oof!", was all that came out of X's mouth when the air was knocked from his lungs. Then Katarou picked him up by the shoulder of his cape and punched him again hard in the stomach. X tried to yell but no air would come.

No air. But X still had his wit and his reflexes.

Red X extended his arm and sent a savage elbow into Katarou's face. The large Asian man's head reeled back from the blow. His elbow extended, Red X further swung that same arm back and then back fisted Katarou head. Before Katarou could recover from the blow, X raised his leg and sidekicked Katarou's stomach, which both hurt him and pushed X away from Katarou. Katarou's grip on X's cape was easily lost after those blows.

Red X landed on the ground and held his stomach, coughing for air.

Katarou stood dizzily, desperate to shake off the repeated blows to his head. Katarou wasn't worried, despite the taste of blood in his mouth. He was a tough man.

Katarou charged at Red X again before X could completely catch his breath. Red X jumped back to dodge, but it wasn't fast enough and Katarou caught him in his grasp. Then Katarou spun around and threw the much smaller and lighter thief.

Red X hit the ground and rolled through the grass. He looked up to see Katarou reach into the thick grass and pull a wire.

_BOOM!_

The ground around X was littered with small explosions and smoke. 

"I thought-", he said weakly, then inhaled more. "I thought you said no explosives!" Red X rushed out of the smoke parallel to Katarou and sent a swarm of shuriken at the large Asian man.

"I lied!" Katarou fell backwards and made his large frame as small at target as possible as the shuriken flew around him and nipped at his clothes. As soon as Katarou stood back up, his face was impaled with X's heel from a flying sidekick.

Katarou flew back but grabbed X's legs, taking X down with him. Katarou fell down into the grass and Red X fell on him. Then Katarou rolled over onto of X and pinned him down.

_I hate grappling!_, X thought. Katarou quickly manipulated the smaller thief in to a chokehold, but to his surprise, Red X small size and flexibility allowed him to quickly escape his grasp. Katarou grabbed him again and pushed him deeper into the shadowy graves beneath the tall grass.

"I am victorious!", Katarou said.

"Guess again, big guy!" Suddenly a search of electricity rocket into Katarou's body, and Katarou screamed and jumped off Red X.

Red X stood up from the grassy depths, his hand sparking with bolts of electricity.

"I thought you said no weapons!", Katarou said as he silently sulked on the ground.

"Well, one good deed deserves another.", Red X said as he deactivated the charge.

Katarou shrugged it off and jumped high into the air. Red X dashed to the side to dodge the incoming attack and succeeded. He spun on his heel and brought his hands back up into a guarding modified Bai-Jong stance. Katarou attacked with a spinning heel kick, and X stepped back to dodge.

What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. Their bodies not fast enough to change the course of fate and the outcome of this fight.

Katarou jumped into the air again and chambered his leg for another sidekick.

Red X jumped back.

Katarou landed and kicked where X had once been.

Red X darted forward, stepping on Katarou's kicking leg with his own left leg.

Katarou winced in the pain at the stress on his knee.

Red X stepped forward, using Katarou as a stepping-stone. He chambered his right leg behind him.

Katarou's eyes widened.

Red X jumped off Katarou's leg with a step from his own left foot, and brought his right knee forward from behind him.

_CRACK!_

Red X, slightly in mid air, kneed Katarou in the face! Katarou's head reeled back harder then before, blood spilling from his nose and mouth. As Katarou fell back and away, Red X raises his right knee away and kicked Katarou again with his right leg!

The world stopped. Time stopped. The slow motion they'd been subject to had completely stopped, if just for one glorious moment to Red X. Katarou was flying backwards head first, Red X above him with his right leg completely extended into Katarou's chin.

Then time resumed it's normal pace, and Katarou hit the ground hard. Red X, not planning his landing, fell to the ground too on his back.

Nothing.

Silence.

The wind blew over the grass.

Red X rose from the grassy depths and stood upright, his caped draped around him as if welcoming him home from a victory.

Red X slowly walked towards the area of bent grass where Katarou laid. He stood above the giant martial artist on the ground.

Katarou fought to keep conscious, and spit blood from his mouth into the grass. "I… Concede."

"Not pulling another dirty trick on me, are ya?", Red X said, concealing his own pains and fatigues.

Katarou shook his head.

Red X reached down to help up his opponent.

Katarou reached up and accepted the help, and sat up with X's help. "The man… Who has hunted you…", Katarou referred to Space Man, keeping his end of the bargain.

"Space Man?"

"Yes… X-San…", Katarou put a hand to his sore head. "I don't know who he is. He approached me with this job. Said to wait here for you and fight you anyway I want. But I couldn't end your life. He said that would be his job."

"Great… That all you know? Where is he?"

"I don't know anything more. But I suspect he's returned to the cabin in the woods."

"Oh perfect!", X said sarcastically and turned to run, but stopped.

Katarou silently hung his head low.

"Ya know… Big guy… I once heard a story about a martial arts master somewhere in the mountains of Asia."

Katarou perked his head up.

"He's called the True Master. If you can find him and train under him…" Red X smirked. "Then ya gotta promise to give me a lesson or two of what he taught ya."

Katarou smiled. "Yes... I will. Thank you, my friend, X-Sama."

X almost smiled under his mask. "No prob… Big guy. Maybe next time we see each other, I'll take you up on that green tea." Then Red X dashed off into the woods again.

Katarou, reassured that his friendship with Red X had not been broken, laid back down in the grass and rested.

-X-

Red X ran as fast as he could though the forest. He cared nothing for stealth, breaking every twig on his way. Soon he came upon the cabin and picked his pace back up.

Red X reached the front door and kicked it in, reducing the door to splinters. "Arrowette!", he yelled.

But no one was home. Inside was a mess. Blast marks, red goo, ice from freeze rays, and countless different arrows decorated what was left of the inside of the cabin.

"Looking for her?", a voice said from behind.

Red X spun around quickly, and his eyes widened again.

The Space Man, complete in his purple suit, cape, and helmet, stood upon a near by hill. One of Chang's henchmen stood beside him. And worst of all…

Arrowette was on her knees in front of him. She was held hostage by her own bow, which was around her head; it's wire digging into her neck. Her hands were up trying to pull the taunt wire away, put the Space Man's grip was on the bow itself. He kept the bow pulled and the wire taunt, preventing Arrowette from speaking. She tried to say something, but only coughed and tried not to choke.

Red X was struck silent and shocked. Not a single thought flew through his head.

Arrowette coughed and managed to get out "I'm… sorry…".

"Oh, and my name is not 'space man'", the man in the purple suit said. "You may address me as Haze."

Red X clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes into deep glare.

-X-

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to update.

I'd like to take a moment to thank all the reviewers who've noted my "great grasp on what makes X tick" as Super Chocolate Bar says. I put a lot of work into understanding Red X, and it's nice that it's noticed. Thanks.


	10. Cornered

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke

………………………………………………………………………………...

Red X clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes into deep glare. "Haze… huh?"

The purple glad man, whose build was not much different then Red X's, stood silently. His full-faced skull-shaped visor reflected Red X's image. His hands were still tight around the bow that kept Arrowette hostage. He was the Space Man, now better known as Haze.

"Yeah… I thought it had a nice ring to it.", Haze said.

"So, you're the guy who's been hunting me down for the last few months? You're the guy who's been trying to tear off my head and put in on a stick!", Red X asked sternly.

"Yes, I am that man. Looks like I finally get to meet you, Red X." Haze spoke with an almost refined elegance in his voice and excellent annunciation. He was obviously a well education person. "I'd say it's nice to make your acquaintance, but it's really not."

"Likewise, Barney.", X said, referring to Haze's purple costume. "Now let the blonde go. It's me ya hate right?"

"Oh, I do. You and the Teen Titans both."

Red X raised his left eyebrow. "The Titans? What do you want with those kids?"

"I hate them!", he spat out suddenly.

Arrowette was still struggling to find a way out that he wouldn't notice, but he'd stripped her of all her arrows.

"I hate them, almost as much as I hate you, Red X. If not more.", he said, calming himself down again.

"If you hate them so much, then why go though all the trouble of turning me into road kill?", Red X asked.

"Because you are not an easy man to find, Red X. I'll give you this much, you hide well. The Titans? They put their headquarters on an island in the bay! It's a giant letter "T"! The buildings a city landmark! How can you not find it? I can attack the Titans any time I want. But you I needed to find first. If I first attacked the Titans, and this miserable Titan-loving city, then I'd never find you afterwards."

Red X paused for a moment as he took a breath and gathered his thoughts. "So… Why exactly do you hate us again?"

"Because both you and Titans stole everything from me. Not materialistically, of course. I have plenty of earthly goods. No, you stole the only thing I ever wanted. The only love or affection I ever wanted."

"What?"

He gave a light tug at Arrowette's bow, reminding Arrowette that she was still at his mercy. "That's right. You took the only love a child ever wanted. You stole my hopes and dreams from me."

"But I've never met you before! I'm pretty sure I'd remember you!", Red X protested. "And… How exactly did I still your hopes and dreams, again?"

"Not just you. You and the Teen Titans.", Haze corrected him.

"Okay, how did me and the Titans steal your hopes and dreams?"

"It's a rather long story, I'm afraid."

"Do I look like I have anywhere else better to be?", Red X said sarcastically.

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you, the Teen Titans, and this wicked city will all pay.", Haze said.

"Didn't notice her in that vendetta. Let Arrowette go. You want to fight me? I'm right here."

"Please, how stupid to you think I am? If I sent my henchmen after you, you'd strike them down before they ever had a clue."

"Forget the henchies. Just you and me. Right here. Right now."

"No." Haze paused. "Don't mistake me for a coward, X. But I'd prefer to get rid of everyone I hate at once. And my special surprise for this city isn't quite ready yet. So you'll just have to wait. Until then…", he tugged on Arrowette's arrow. "This trinket will make sure you come when I'm ready."

Red X paused, but only for a moment. "Let me get this strait… You hate the Titans, this city, and me for whatever reason. But you can't fight me yet, so you're taking her as a hostage so I can walk into some trap. Then you'll prepare your 'special surprise' for the city, which can only be some kind of Doomsday plot. Right?"

"Yes. That's exactly correct."

Red X was quiet.

Haze was quiet.

…

…

"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT STUPID, CLICHÉ IDEA!", Red X yelled out suddenly.

Haze was very taken back by that outburst, and probably blinked a few times under his visor. "Ex- Excuse me?"

"First ya wuss out of fighting me, then ya take the blonde girl in a skirt hostage! And now you're telling me you have some Doomsday plot to destroy the city or something? And ya even got used henchmen!" He threw his hand out and pointed at the henchmen standing next to him.

"Well- I-"

"Where did you get this plan of yours? A Saturday morning cartoon!", Red X continued to chastise, as if forgetting every concept of a hostage negotiation.

Arrowette tried to laugh, despite the bow's wire chocking her, simply because Red X was blunt enough to heckle the villain at the worst possible time. That thief had guts, she had to give him that. She couldn't help but smirk.

Haze's henchmen even started to silently chuckle, but a single glare from Haze silenced him quickly.

Haze looked back at Red X after glaring at his guard. "It doesn't matter! We're leaving now, and I'm taking her with me!" He gave a short tug at the bow and Arrowette choked before she could pull the wire of the bow away.

Red X stepped forward and balled his fists again. "Wait!"

"When I'm ready to exact my revenge on all of you, I'll contact you. I'll light off fireworks just over the location I want you to come to! And if you don't come, then I'll vaporize her along with the rest of this stupid city!"

"Wait a minute!"

"Guards!"

Suddenly two guards on either side of Red X appeared from their hiding places and ran towards him.

"Get back here you Power Rangers reject!", Red X screamed at Haze.

The henchman next to Haze activated a smoke bomb. Haze, Arrowette, and the henchman were all surrounded in the thick cloud as they retreated.

Red X was about to take a step to run after them, but the henchmen who had appeared to his left grabbed his arm to restrain him.

Instinctively, and quite angrily, Red X twirled his left arm up, behind, and then under the henchman's grabbing arm in the blink of an eye. X continued the move upwards with his arm, pushing the henchman's bent elbow forward and in front of him, a direction it was not meant to go. Red X pushed for half a second then the henchman's arm went _SNAP_ and he screamed.

Repeated practice of that move had led to his fast deployment of it. He let got and the henchman fell to the ground while he screamed and clutched his forcefully dislocated shoulder.

Red X instinctively looked to his right to see the second henchmen was about grab him. Red X threw out his elbow in a wide swing that caught the henchman right on the respirator on his face. Then he back fisted the henchman with that hand, and sent him to the ground.

Red X looked back up, but unfortunately saw that Haze, Arrowette, and the last henchman were all gone. He heard a car engine start in the distance, and jumped up the hill that Haze had just stood on, and saw the car speed away. But it was too dark to make out the car's make and model, much less it's license plate.

He quickly activated his night vision and saw that the car was a black limo, but it was too far away for him to see it's license plate.. Whoever drove it obviously didn't know not to take a car like that on unpaved ground. The limo rocked up and down violently as it sped away towards the main dirt road.

Red X cursed himself for letting it get away. He pressed a button on his belt, and suddenly his bike retracted its armor and it's engine came to life. Red X ran down the hill towards the limo as fast as he could. Then his bike came screaming out of the woods and drove next to him, matching his running speed. Red X reached over and grabbed the bike's handlebars, then jumped on the bike.

"Got ya now!", Red X throttled the bike and sped away after the limo, knowing that there was no way the limo would ever out race Red X's bike.

The limo released some small spikes in attempt to puncture X's bike's tires, but the bike's tires were Kevlar lined and gel filled. The same tires used in bulletproof cars and presidential escorts. Puncturing the tires with spikes was virtually impossible, and X enjoyed harmlessly running over the spikes as he came closer and closer to the limo.

Next some kind of small ball dropped from the bottom of the limo's undercarriage just as it reached the dirt road. The ball bounced down the road towards Red X and exploded.

Red X hit his breaks, and skid on the side of his bike to break before he was caught in the explosion. Red X stood his bike back up and looked deep into the smoke around him. The sound of the limo's engine was dieing away in the distance on the other side of the smoke. Red X knew the main road was just ahead. He throttled his bike and darted down the road, emerging from the smoke.

But the limo was gone. And when X reached the end of the dirt road and stopped at the intersection of it and the road he had been speeding down with Arrowette earlier. No way of knowing which direction the limo went. He could push the bike, and his own skills, to the limit and try to search all the surrounding roads for the limo in time, but he already had another lead.

Red X promptly turned the bike around and headed back towards the cabin.

Meanwhile, outside the cabin.

The henchman who had his shoulder dislocated lay moaning on the ground. The other henchman who had been elbowed and backfist was just starting to clear his head so he sat up and rubbed his head.

"You…", a voice said.

The henchman stopped rubbing his head and looked up.

A skull with a red x on its forehead stood out from the shadows in front of him. It approached closer, and Red X's shape became more apparent to the henchman. "I have questions…. And you better have answers!"

He reached out and grabbed the henchman by his shoulders, and threw him against a tree. The angry thief kept a death grip on the henchman's hazmat suit and glared as if he was the incarnation of doom and misfortune. "Where is he?", Red X slowly asked with venom in his voice.

"Wh- Who?"

"The guy in the purple Power Rangers suit. Haze, or whatever he calls himself."

"I- I can't talk! He-"

Red X moved his face closer, forcing the henchman to stare at the skull on his face and the ghostly whites of his eyes. "Is it any worse then what I'll do to you…?" Red X released his right hand and pulled it far back. He balled his right hand into a fist and activated his rotary blades. Then he stabbed the tree just next to the henchman's face with the spinning red blades.

"Agh!", the henchman squealed.

The rotary blade spun like a buzz saw and sprayed sawdust at the henchman's head. Then Red X slowly began to move the rotary blade closer to the henchman's face. "Talk!"

"Okay! Okay, I'll talk!"

Red X pulled the rotary blade away and retracted it.

"Haze! He's building some kind of bomb with zynothium!"

"He's what! Where is he?"

"He's-" Then a puff of purple gas shot out of the henchman's ventilator mask. He choked away as the purple gas filled the inside of the mask and his lungs. Then the guard gradually stopped choking and went limp in X's grasp. Red X let go and the unconscious guard slumped down the tree.

"Knock out gas?" Red X quickly turned around and saw more purple gas coming out of the other henchman's ventilator mask.

Red X cursed to himself. Purple gas continued to gently come out the unconscious henchmen's masks like the smoke from a candle.

-X-

"Woo who! Yeah! We get to see Cyborg again! Hey, ya think if I pack some of my famous Tofu Surprise we can convince him to come back to our team?", Breast Boy asked Robin.

The leader of the team was too busy typing away at a computer in the T-Ship's launch bay, preparing the ship for launch, a job that used to be Cyborg's. "Beast Boy, just get in the ship…" Robin slapped his face and went back to work.

The inside of the hanger was a frenzy of activity as the remaining 4 Titans rushed to get the ship ready. They had, only moments before, received a distress call from Cyborg. The signal was choppy at best, but they understood it was an emergency.

Beast Boy turned into a green eagle and flew from that platform Robin and the computer console was on and towards the ship. Raven and Starfire were already busy making sure the ship was prepped and ready.

Robin continued typing away at the computer, double checking the T-Ship's navigational computers and plotting a course strait for steel city. "We can make it to Steel City the fastest if we launch and go strait into sub-orbital."

Then Robin cringed to himself at the sound of some heavy piece of equipment falling to the ground. He didn't even need to look up to speculate that it was Beast Boy's fault. "Ugh…"

Suddenly Robin's communicator rang with the Titan's standard ring tone. He instantly removed it from his utility belt and answered it. "Cyborg?", he asked hopefully.

"Nope. I'm handsomer.", Red X said though the communicator.

"Red… X…?", Robin's wide eyes blinked a few times. "What- How are you calling me on this?"

"Nevermind that, you got a problem."

"Yeah, I'm busy. Too busy to deal with you right now."

"Sorry, chuckles, I'm serious. Some new villain in a purple suit and cape has kidnapped Arrowette and is planning to blow up the city with some kind of zynothium bomb. You gotta stop him."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Okay… So I threw eggs at the T-Car one time. That doesn't mean you shouldn't believe me."

"That was you?", Robin exclaimed.

"Oh, come on, it's not like the eggs could have peeled the special paint off of that thing. Look, the point is you gotta go play hero again."

"X…"

"Hey, I already saved the city once. I've had my fill of heroics. Besides, I figured you know all the best spots to put a Doomsday device. I mean, if it were up to me, I'd look for it at Make Out Point."

"Red X, I'm going to hang up now. And when I'm done doing what it is I'm busy doing, I'm going to figure out how you called me on this thing."

"Knock yourself out, Blue Jay. Just save the city. Call out 'Titans Go!' before storming the place like a bunch of jackrabbits on Pixie Stix. Just go!"

"No."

Red X didn't reply for a moment. As if he need a moment to comprehend what Robin just said. "What?"

"I'm not trusting the word of a thief who broke into the tower and took a suit from me."

"What! It's not my style to stab someone in the back, and you know that."

"You're style is taking care of yourself. And you'd do that easier if you didn't have to worry about us."

"I- I can't believe this! You can't just turn your back on this city! That's my job!"

"Good bye, X. For now anyway."

"Robin! Don't you hang up! Listen to me, I'm telling the truth! Some new villain named Haze is going to set off a Zynothium bomb. He has Arrowette."

"I still don't believe you."

"But-"

"Better luck next time…", Robin said with a smirk.

"You… spiky haired, hyper-paranoid, little-"

Robin hung up before Red X could even finish his sentence.

"Robin? Who was that?", Starfire asked as she flew up to him.

"Nothing, Star. Don't worry about it. We need to get out of here."

Moments later, the launch bay doors opened and the T-Ship took off from its launch bay. It flew away from Titans Tower, rising higher and higher into the sky until it reached sub-orbital.

Red X stood watching on the rooftop of a tall building overlooking the coast. The x-themed communicator was still clutched tightly in his hand.

-X-

Red X entered his apartment though the window and stepped on the welcome mat he had placed on the floor there. He walked tiredly across his apartment and towards his kitchen.

He opened his refrigerator and looked for anything that might fill his empty stomach. But there was nothing worth eating at the moment, which was probably for the best because he didn't have an appetite. But he did remove an old soda from the back of the fridge. He lifted the mask off and over his mouth, and drank the rest of the old soda.

"Uck." Less then pleased with the taste, he tossed the empty can in the trash, closed the fridge, and put his mask back on.

He felt terrible and he knew it. It wasn't everyday that he was suckered like that, but it had happened before. It wasn't everyday that someone, anyone, turned his or her back on him, but it had happened before. But for whatever reason, tonight seemed to particularly affect him in a negative way.

_Guess there's nothing left to do but sit and wait for the fireworks to begin… _

He began walking up the spiral staircase that led to his bedroom and workshop.

…_then that fruit cake in purple spandex can vaporize me. Oh yeah, the city and the Titans too._

He walked into his room and couldn't stand to look at his pet rock. He just walked right in and into the bathroom. With the bathroom door shut, Red X took off his suit, which was like a second skin to him, and took a shower.

"Ugh… I feel like… Plasmus after… After…" He stared up into the stream of hot water flowing from the showerhead. "Man! I can't even make a good joke!" Completely pitting himself now, he continued on to lather and wash himself while steam filled the air.

Red X immerged from the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and walked over to his dresser. On top of the dresser was the cage that X's pet rock lived in. He tried desperately not to make any sort of eye contact with the stone as he removed some clothes from the dresser.

Silence.

Red X glanced upwards at the rock, then back down to his sock drawer.

He continued to aimlessly look for something to wear.

Silence.

"What was I supposed to do?", Red X asked while looking down into his drawers.

The rock said nothing.

"I'm a thief. I'm not a hero. There are other heroes I could call. SuperBoy. Kid Flash. Is Bushido in town? Nah, he's never in town. What about that band geek, Herald? At the very least I could ask someone to evacuate the city. But I called the real heroes, and they quit. It's not my problem anymore, right? Right."

The rock had nothing to say to him.

"But then again… Arrowette…"

The rock was curiously silent.

"She's just a friend. Although… I'll admit, she's the first friend I've had in… Ever, or at least a long time anyway. Aside from you that is."

The rock proved that silence was golden.

"I mean, it's never been my style to just leave a friend behind. Not that I've had many friends to leave behind. But she can take care of herself, right?"

The rock said nothing.

"You're right. She's doomed." Red X looked up and finally maid eye contact with the rock. "But why me? Why do I have to go play hero?"

The rock said nothing.

"Because there's no one left… I know. And I guess if the whole city blew up, that would be pretty bad. I'd lose a great place like this. Do you know how hard it was to find a place with this kind of view while using an alias?"

The rock's silence pieced through Red X's selfishness.

"Yeah… And I guess everyone being vaporized too would be a bad thing. Why would that nut in a costume want to blow up the city anyway? Do we even know he's actually going to blow it up? Well, his henchman did say he was building a zynothium bomb."

The rock waited until Red X realized something before it responded.

"Wait a min… A zynothium bomb? You can make a bomb out of zynothium?" This time Red X was silent and his eyes widened when he realized something.

Then he ran over to his closet and began searching through it desperately. "Come on… Come on…", he said as he moved boxes and tossed aside dirty clothes. "A ha!" Red X emerged from his closet with the gun-shaped scanner he stole from Soto labs when he first met the Titans.

"Now then… If ya got enough zynothium to build a bomb, chances are ya got enough for this thing to pick up." He held up the scanner like a pistol and activated it. He walked around his room, turning slowly in a circle until the directional scanner found the molecular signature (whatever that meant) of zynothium. Then the scanner detected some zynothium in the direction of Jump City's bay.

"Hmm…"

Red X continued to point the scanner in that direction while he adjusted it. Then he pin-pointed the exact location of the zynothium. Titans Tower.

Red X lowered the pistol-like scanner with a sigh. "It's no use. That's just the zynothium from the original belt he stole from me." Red X looked back at his pet rock. "But, the belt was shielded… The zynothium in the first belt was shielded so that Titans couldn't build another scanner and track me, just like the new belts I use now. So if the original belt is shielded, then that means I'm picking up a different source of zynothium."

The rock was stunned silent.

"The bomb! That's what the scanner's detecting! The zynothium bomb is in Titans Tower!"

Red X raced out of his bedroom and into his workshop where he picked up his spare costume, leaving his other one in the bathroom where he left it.

He proceeded to put on the spare x-suit. "Nothing like a new set of clothes to make a man feel good.", he said as he buckled the spare belt. Then he stormed around the workshop, collecting any extra tools or weapons that weren't already in the belt. He quickly collected some more collapsed shuriken and loaded them into his gloves, ready to flick into his hand at an instants notice.

Finally, Red X immerged from his workshop, fully clad and armed, and stood in the threshold of his bedroom door. "Take care.", he said with a wave to the pet rock. "I gotta go play hero… Since no one else will."

Red X turned around, grabbed up the edges of his cape, and jumped down from the loft and into his kitchen. He landed as silently as ever, suddenly completely revived with energy.

-X-

"Move it!", Red X yelled in vain as he and his bike weaved in between cars on Murakami Street. Then he made a hard left turn onto an exit with a sign above it that read "Titans Tower", and drove down the new downwards-sloping road. The road sloped and dipped below the rest of the sidewalk and city, and the small road stopped at a large armored door with a giant "T" painted on it.

Red X reached into his belt, pulled out his version of the Titan's communicator, and used it to open the large armored doors.

"Identification confirmed. Welcome Teen Titans.", a computerized voice said as the doors slowly slid away. Behind the technically underground doors was an underground tunnel that led strait to Titans Tower.

There was a wealth of benefits to stealing and then duplicating Robin's communicator.

Red X revved his bike and rocketed down the long tunnel that lead under the bay itself. On his ride down the long tunnel, Red X couldn't help but wonder who Haze was, or what kind of fight was waiting for him at the end of the tunnel.

The end of the tunnel was in sight.

Red X exited the tunnel and entered the Titan's vehicle garage beneath the tower, the birthplace of the T-Car. Red X slowed his bike down and parked it next to Robin's R-Cycle.

He looked around, almost half expecting more henchmen to randomly jump at him, but none came.

"Hmm… No one in the garage."

Red X got off his bike, disabled a security camera he noticed with a shuriken, retrieved the shuriken from the sparking camera, and walked out of the garage.

Later, X slowly crawled inside an air duct and looked past a vent that led into the Titan's living room. Then he detached the vent and jumped from the air duct in the ceiling and landed in the middle of the living room. "No one in the living room."

Elsewhere, Red X peeked his head into the Titan's large gym and training room. "No one in the gym."

Elsewhere, Red X opened a pretend treasure chest and withdrew from inside a rubber ducky. "No one in Beast Boy's room." He squeaked the duck twice for thrills then put it away and closed the lid on the pretend treasure chest.

Next, he opened the door to Cyborg's room. "No one in Cyborg's room." Then he spied a car magazine on Cyborg's table and took a quick peek inside.

Later, he opened Raven's closet and beheld her collection of blue cloaks. "No one in Raven's room." Then he shut the closet door and proceeded on his search.

He opened a drawer and beheld its contents. "No one in Starfire's room." He looked to his right, then to his left. Then the thief reached inside the drawer, removed an unseen item clutched tightly in his hand, and tucked the soft item into his belt with a mischievous chuckle. He shut the drawer and went on his way.

He opened a door, walked down a set of stairs in the darkness, and behind the huge basement of Titans Tower. He took out a small monocular from his belt, looked into it with one eye, and used it to scan the large room in night vision, infrared, and ultraviolet vision. "No one in the basement.", he said before putting away the monocular and ascending the stairs.

Finally, he crawled down a maintenance ladder in a room deep beneath the tower, and beheld the Tower's power core. The power core was a large sphere with various pipes and huge cables coming out of it. Red X sighed. "No one in the power core room either." He climbed down and off the latter, setting his feet on the cold metal floor. "I thought for sure they'd at least blow up this thing."

He leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor. "I don't get it. The scanner said the zynothium was in this building. But this place is deserted."

Red X let out another deep sigh and closed his eyes.

"Have I lost my edge? Nah, I couldn't have. But then where are they?"

Red X sat in his quiet mediation for a few moments, then looked back up at the power core. He noticed support struts that had been added to steady the power core. Then he also noticed that the metal floor had a slight bumped curve to it. The support struts and the damage to the floor obviously came after the tower was built.

Red X found that very curious. Had they added the supports after an earthquake that caused damage to the floor? No. Most likely the tower was meant to withstand an earthquake. The tower could probably serve as a shelter too if needed.

So why add support struts to the power core? What stress had the Tower been unprepared for?

Then Red X suddenly realized that Titans Tower was probably never meant to be lifted up into the air like Slade did a while back with the help of those giant worms.

Red X's eyes widened wide, and he was stuck silent.

The worms tunneled under the tower. Everyone in the city saw it. They probably left tunnels below the tower, and if the Titans left the tunnels alone… 

Red X suddenly bolted up from the floor and quickly climbed out of the room.

-X-

There was no standing entrance from the Tower into those tunnels, or at least none that Red X could find. But Red X did know another way to those tunnels.

His bike squealed as he shifted gears and accelerated up the ramp that led to a bridge. He moved between the lanes, streaking past cars in a blur a black, and continued to break the speed limit.

He throttled the bike and gave it an extra boost of speed just as he reached the end of the ramp, and temporarily sent his bike fling in midair.

Red X tooted his bike's novelty horn, which sounded just like the one from Dukes of Hazard.

Red X landed back-wheel first, then his front wheel touched the pavement. He laughed for a moment over his horn as he continued to speed off.

Moments later he reached a construction site and coasted his bike till he stopped just in front of the main gate.

Red X read the sign on the fence aloud. "Jupiter Enterprises." Red X mused over the local millionaire, Loren Jupiter, who owned the construction site. It was here, at this site, where one of the tunnels had attempted to be closed up.

Red X was in a hurry, so didn't bother to pick the lock closing the fence's main gait. Instead, an explosive shuriken did the trick. With the main gate defeated and open, Red X road inside on his beloved bike.

"Now if I remember correctly… The hole should be somewhere around… There." Red X stopped his bike and beheld the signs and cautions tape around a giant gapping hole in the ground.

He slowly road his bike over to the hole that led into the subtly sloped tunnel. "They never even tried to cover it. Why?" Red X mused for only a moment more. "Oh well. I'll worry about it later."

He drove past the caution signs, and snapped some yellow caution tape apart in his bike's wake. He revved his bike's engine, and then boldly dived into the hole and sped down the tunnel, with the skull shaped headlight of the bike and night vision as his only guide.

Barreling his way to fights yet unknown.


	11. This Is How A Heart Breaks

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?" -The Joker

………………………………………………………………………………...

Chains rattled above her.

Arrowette's arms were suspended above her via handcuffs and a chain. The chain led up to another metal platform, similar to the one she stood on. She was uncomfortable, and extremely frustrated with herself for being captured by the villain.

She tried to consol herself by telling herself that it happened to the best of heroes. Red X had told her about how Chang had captured four of the five Titans, and how he had saved Robin. It happened to the best of heroes every now and then.

But that still didn't make her any less pleased. At least he hadn't removed her mask… yet.

Far below Titan's Tower was the main cavity that had been dug by Slade's worms. Slade had originally installed platforms and catwalks, an elevator or two, and a central computer on a main suspended platform. However, Haze had installed more support beams, catwalks, and another platform closer to the ceiling of the cavity. She guessed Haze's Zynothium powered bomb was on that higher and smaller platform he added.

"So, what do you think of my little office?", Haze asked as he walked up to her, speaking as usual in his sophisticated accent. Arrowette could swear Haze must have been taught in one of those pretty schools where even the elementary kids wore ties.

She didn't reply to his question, only glared at him. She noted how horribly creepy he was. Creepier then she would have thought. So he had a purple suit and an educated accent? No rich kid should be that scary. But there was just something about Haze that oozed a disturbing feeling. There was just something about him. And the more she observed him, the more she felt it.

And it had a tendency to chill her to the bone.

"I admit, it's not quite finished yet. But I think my men are making good improvements." He stopped admiring the large cavity below Titans Tower and looked closer at her. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"Sorry, being taken hostage in your little grudge war with Red X doesn't exactly put me in a good mood."

"I would imagine not. But it wont matter much longer."

"Why? Gonna blow up the city?", she asked sarcastically.

"Why, yes."

Arrowette blinked a few times. "You serious?"

Haze smirked under his helmet. "Ah… So now you're interested." He probably grinned. "Originally I just planned on detonating a Zynothium dirty bomb. Zynothium is actually only unstable when it's exposed to oxygen or when power is being drawn from it during a reaction. Did you know that? So if done right, a great deal of the city would receive radiation poisoning from a Zynothium dirty bomb. But then I thought… Why stop there?"

Arrowette stared at him.

"After all, if I put it under Titans Tower, maybe they'd be blamed. Or better yet…" He pointed upwards. "If I manage to blast into the Titan's power core…"

She was silent.

"If the Tower's power core becomes unstable, then it might just explode. Which will obliterate Titans Tower.", Haze said with a sick sort of glee.

"You're going to blow up the Tower!"

"Yes! And when it explodes it'll send piece of the Tower all around like shrapnel! And it'll spread the radiation for the charged Zynothium too!"

Arrowette stared at him with wide eyes and a slightly dropped jaw. She finally understood the scope of it all. This wasn't just a nice little bomb dramatically placed under Titans Tower.

"Then entire coast will be hit with the debris from Titans Tower, raining down from the sky like meteors! And the surviving half of the city will probably get radiation poisoning! Let's see Slade or Brother Blood do that! Huh! I wont just ruin the city, I'll get rid of it forever! The only things that can ever live in Jump City again are roaches!"

Arrowette stared at him with wide eyes. "But… Why? Why would you destroy an entire city and everyone in it?"

"Because I hate the Titans. And because I can.", he answered calmly. Then he turned from her and walked off, his cape waving behind him.

Arrowette watched him helplessly as he walked off. Her chains bound tight around her wrists made sure that there was nothing she could do at all. And oh how she would have loved to just lunge at him, and beat him without mercy.

And now that she knew what he planned to do she was even more disturbed by Haze then ever before. But more horrifying then what he planned to do was why he planned to do it.

Just because he hated five heroes, he was willing to destroy everyone they guarded.

A chill ran down her spine…

A lackey, dressed in his hazmat suit, ran up to Haze with a device in his hand. "Sir!", he called as he ran up. "Sir, we might have a problem."

"Oh what now, you twit?", Haze asked, this problem obviously beneath him.

"You… Have a call…"

"What?"

The lackey handed Haze the device, a communicator of some kind, and Haze took it.

"Hello?", Haze spoke into the communicator.

"Nice place ya got here.", Red X said.

Arrowette's head perked up and a slight smile crept over her lips.

Meanwhile, in another sections of the tunnels dug by Slade's worms, Red X sat on a tied up and unconscious lackey like he was a bench. "I bet with a little elbow grease, you could have this place looking like a piece of crud in no time.", Red X taunted into the communicator he stole from the lackey.

Haze gripped the communicator in his hand tightly, and tried to keep his voice calm. "Ah…", he began as if examining a fine piece of art. "So you've found my secret lair. Bravo. You are quite the cunning piece of work."

"Stuff it, you Ivy league drop out.", Red X ordered curtly. "I'm calling you for one reason, and one reason only."

"Which is?"

"A choice. Either you come over here and kiss my butt… Or I'm coming over there to kick yours.", Red X said with a voice like venom.

Haze glared and the communicator and shut if off.

Red X stared at the communicator he'd stolen from the lackey. "Bad choice."

Haze threw his communicator off the platform and let it fall into the seemingly endless abyss beneath the platforms. He cursed under his breath, and looked over too Arrowette.

She smirked. "You are so doomed."

-X-

Lackeys and supplies rested in a sort of camp in another large cavern underground. It was the cavern where the Titans, including Terra, had once gathered and discovered three of Slade's worms. The worms simply appeared and then dug another tunnel on their way out. Between the worms and the Titans, eight tunnels entered and existed the large cavity.

And it was here that lackeys had set up a sort of campsite. Tents, propane generators, and porto potty's littered the area.

Two lackeys in hazmat suits stood by the entrance of one tunnel.

Suddenly two grey hands emerged from the darkness, grabbed one lackey around his head and neck, and swiftly pulled him back into the devouring darkness.

The second guard yelled. "Hey! Hey over here!" He raised his weapon and pointed it at the tunnel's entrance. "Something happened to Eduardo!"

"What are you talking about now?", another lackey said.

Suddenly a red line appeared from the darkness, Red X's new X-webbing, hit the lackey's leg, and anchored itself. Then the red line went taunt and pulled the lackey's feet from under him.

"Umph!"

The line pulled back into the darkness, dragging the guard with him.

"What? No. NO! Agh!", The guard clawed at the hard rocky ground as the line pulled him into the darkness where his friend Eduardo had disappeared it. "Help me!", he screamed as he disappeared feet first into the darkness.

Then it was quiet.

The other lackeys had all be alerted and stood watching, both interested and horrified at the same time.

It was quiet.

They gradually grabbed their weapons and approached closer.

It was quiet.

One lackey raised his weapon and looked into the shadows.

It was quiet.

Then Red X appeared in front of him, phasing into sight and materializing like a living nightmare. Before the lackey could mutter a sound, Red X was in the air and his heel was deeply implanted into the lackey's mask.

The hapless lackey fell back and X charged.

Letting out a battle cry, Red X dodged the end of a blaster staff, grabbed it, ripped it from it's owner's hands, then beat the owner's head once with a savage blow. Red X jumped to the side and twirled the blaster staff in his hands before leaping back into the group.

Red X weaved in between blasts and attacked with the staff. His moves and actions, purely reflexive at this point, like a wounded and angry beast striking, became lost to even Red X himself.

One lackey ran, and Red X threw the staff. It spun and over and before impacting the back of the lackey's head and sent him to the ground. X grabbed another lackey's arm and punched the side of the elbow, grievously wounding the joint, if not breaking it, with a _POP_ sound.

Red X jumped back with a somersault and out of the group to access the situation and his enemies. 3 lackeys left, scared, heart rate up, panicked, lousy weapons.

He raised his arm, flicked three-collapsed shuriken from his glove and into his hand, then threw them. The three weapons quickly unfolded in mid-air and stabbed each lackey in the chest.

They panicked for a moment, thinking they'd been stabbed deeply, and then realized the hazmat suits were thick enough to protect them from anything but a bad prick.

But by then, Red X was right in front of them again.

He stole the blaster staff from one and slammed its live end into the gut of another lackey.

He spin heel kicked one in the face and broke his facemask apart.

He punched the third in the stomach then uppercutted him in the face.

A few more lackeys rushed to the scene.

And the carnage continued.

-X-

"Boss! He's at the Holding Cavern!", one lackey said as he rushed into the main cavern below the tower. "He's tearing us apart!", he yelled to Haze.

"WHAT!", Haze screamed.

Arrowette smirked, obviously enjoying every moment of her imprisonment now. "Told ya."

"Oh will you shut up!", Haze replied to her as he rushed to a ladder and climbed up to the higher platform he'd added just below the caverns ceiling.

On top of the added platform was a simple device like a large round console in the middle. Protruding from the top of it was a frail metal claw that held up a single via of Zynothium. It was the Zynothium bomb.

A lackey was checking readings and working at the bomb's consol.

"Status report.", Haze demanded, as if that was what he was supposed to demand.

"Technically the Dirty Bomb's ready.", the lackey told him. "Not very robust and it's held together with used chewing gum and paperclips… But it'll blow."

"Can it blow past all that and into the Tower's power core still?" Haze pointed to the ceiling of unstable stone.

"Not sure. If we had some more C4 it'd have a better chance. All I can guarantee is a loud boom and a lot of radiation."

"What are the chance's it'll blow the Titan's power core?"

"Pretty okay, I'd say. Sixty percent chance maybe. But I can't say for sure. We don't know how much shielding they have up there."

"That'll have to do for now."

"You don't seriously plan to detonate this now, do you, boss?"

Haze grabbed the hapless lackey by the fabric on the chest of his hazmat suit. "If Red X gets in this cavern, then… YES!" He threw the lackey aside and then leaned over the railing of the platform next to a blaster-gatling gun. "Get him! Get Red X! Or you'll _all _be in this stupid cave when I blow it sky high!"

-X-

"Unreal! I swear it was like two ninjas taped together then compressed into one super ninja!", a lackey said as he ran to another lackey, down the tunnel near the entrance to the large cavern with Haze's bomb. That lackey had just come from the battle site where Red X had begun to attack the poorly equipped lackeys.

"You were there?", the second, slightly fatter, lackey said.

"Yeah! I just barely escaped!", the first lackey exclaimed. Then he turned around and pointed his freeze ray down the tunnel. "Who knows? He could be come down here right now!"

"No way. There was anywhere from five to ten of us in there, maybe twelve if Scotty and Kyle are back. You're saying that thief took them all out?"

"With enthusiasm!", the first lackey said with his freeze ray aimed down the tunnel. "And why not? Him and Robin took a lot of the original guys down the first time, back when we worked for Chang." Then something caught his eye, a shine or a small reflection that suddenly vanished after only a moment. "He's here!"

"No way. That's impossible- Umph!" The second and fatter lackey was suddenly interrupted mid-sentence as a sticky-x hit in him the face. And when the sticky-x slapped his mask it carried with it the force of a punch, knocking the lackey off his balance.

"Agh!", the remaining lackey yelled in panic as he fired his freeze ray wildly, and froze a wall of solid ice to cut him off from whatever terror was in the tunnel.

Then the lackey stood still and stared at the giant wall of ice, waiting for any response from whatever monster had been chasing him.

"Psst. Behind you.", Red X said.

The lackey turned around with a yelp, and then Red X grabbed his throat. The other lackey was already lying on the floor.

Red X glared. "Let's dance…"

-X-

"Status report! I want a status report!", Haze screamed to the remaining lackeys in his cavern beneath Titans Tower. "Where is he!"

"Communication with the Holding Cavern has ceased. Communication with the tunnel guards too.", one lackey shouted back up.

"Somebody's gonna get his butt kicked…", Arrowette sang aloud. "Somebody's gonna get his butt kicked…."

"Shut up, insolent woman!", Haze yelled back, panic creeping at his voice. "Seal the tunnel!", he ordered.

"But, sir! We don't know if the rest of us are okay!", another lackey yelled back.

"I don't care! Seal it or none of you will be okay!", Haze ordered. "Freeze it! Goo it up! Seal it!"

Lackey's gathered at the tunnels entrance, which was connected to the main platform by an added bridge, and fired their freeze rays and goo guns, effectively creating a wall of ice and frozen red goo to seal off the tunnel.

Arrowette watched with a smug sense of satisfaction. Red X may have been a thief, but he wasn't the worst person in the world. He might have even have grown close enough to consider her a friend. And she was enjoying the panic that swarmed around her as she hung from her chained wrists. They were all scared of him.

And if she wasn't on his side… She'd be scared too.

_Thump!_

A loud noise sounded against the wall of ice and frozen goo from the other side. Then it was quiet again. But it was only quiet for a moment.

_Boom!_

Suddenly the blast from a well-placed x-mine blew the wall apart. And among the rubble of ice and frozen goo flew one of the lackey's that was in the tunnel with Red X.

Then Red X himself materialized while jumping out of the tunnel.

"FIRE!", Haze ordered.

X dived over the side of the bridge, dodging countless blasts from the remaining lackeys, and fired x-webbing. The red line hit another bridge and X held on tight as he swung down, below the platforms and over the seemingly endless abyss, and back up.

At the apex of his swing upwards, Red X let go of the line of x-webbing, drew in his arms and limbs as he spun in the air, then flung his arms out to launch countless smoke bombs and shrunken from high up in the air.

The shuriken and smoke bombs rained over the lackeys, surrounding them in smoke and rips of their hazmat suits.

In midair while beginning to fall, Red X reached into his belt and quickly withdrew his grapnel gun and fired. The grapnel anchored to jagged rock above the cavern and Red X jerked when the line stopped his fall. Then he flew upwards as the line retracted.

High up on the added platform with the zynothium dirty bomb, Haze and the extra lackey watched.

"The blaster-gatling gun!", Haze yelled to himself as he ran over to prepare it. Then suddenly Red X flew by in a blur of black, and grabbed the lackey that was on the platform with him. Red X flew upwards on the retracting line a bit more, then released the line and dove downwards again in a controlled fall, with the screaming lackey in hand.

Below, Arrowette watched all this like a movie patron mesmerized by the action movie of the year.

A lackey ran up to her, caring her bow and set of arrows. "Here! Take them!"

She blinked a few times in confusion. "What?"

The lackey tossed her bow and arrows by her feet. "Go! Get out of here! And take that… Thing with you!"

"You mean Red X?"

"Yes! Get him out of here!"

"Head's up!", Red X yelled from high above.

And when the lackey, who handed Arrowette her bow and arrows, looked up, the lackey that Red X had grabbed from the upper platform immediately impaled him. Both lackeys fell to the floor in a daze.

Red X landed with his back to Arrowette, and his cape fell around him like a declaration of his prowess. He looked back to her as his grapnel retracted itself back into the grapnel gun.

Arrowette tried to chuckle and grin. "Nice to see you again."

"I bet.", Red X stood and turned around, his cape whipping out of the way, and he threw and explosive shuriken at the chain above Arrowette's head.

It exploded, and the lose chain fell beside her in a neat little pile of clanking metal.

Red X ran to her with his x-blade extended from his hand.

Arrowette held out her hands and closed her eyes as X deftly cut the cuffs apart in one swift stroke.

"Some rescue.", Arrowette said as she disassembled the bands of the broken cuffs and rubbed her sore wrists. "Didn't think the whole big battle was your style."

"Hey, even I know how to have a good time.", Red X said as he retracted his x-blade and composed himself.

"Speaking of good times…", Arrowette said with as smirk as she looked behind Red X at a group of approaching lackeys.

Red X peeked over his caped shoulder and said, "Don't mind if I do.", as Arrowette strapped on her bow and set of arrows.

The next few moments were art. A dance. Ballet.

Red X and Arrowette working in sync, much like Red X and Robin had once fought in sync at Chang's observatory. Arrowette was more skilled at kickboxing and Judo then most people gave her credit for. Even though she was no match for Red X, he had to admire her grace and form as she impaled lackeys with her foot and shattered arms with joint locks. Oh, and she had a knack at whacking heads with her bow.

The last lackey flew backwards and hit his back against the railing of the platform.

Instinctively, Arrowette and Red X stood back to back again in fighting stances. And as they stood catching their breaths, a white dove flew over their heads majestically.

"Uh… X, what in the world is a dove doing in here?", Arrowette said.

"Got me.", Red X replied.

"You!", Haze yelled from above.

Both the thief and the heroine looked up to see the megalomaniac in a purple suit aim his blaster-gatling gun at them.

"Eat this!", Haze yelled as he fired.

Red X and Arrowette dived away from each other to avoid a few blasts. Red X spread his cape, to make him a bigger target and increase the chances Haze would only hit the cape, and dove over the edge again.

With the speed of any quick draw marksmen, Red X withdrew his grapnel gun and fired. With the grapnel anchored, Red X swung upwards on the retracting line towards the support beams that webbed over the walls of the cavern.

Haze kept firing his blaster-gatling gun, trained on Red X.

Red X's grapnel retracted back into the gun as he landed on a support beam and jumped to the next.

Haze kept firing.

Then Red X landed on a beam, then turned to face Haze as he stood upright. An instant before the blasts of energy could touch him he disappeared.

Haze yelled in an irrational frustration then cried out, "Where did you go!" He continued firing like a mad man, hoping to some how hit the thief wherever he had gone. "Why wont you just disintegrate!"

Arrowette called out with a whistle.

Haze looked down.

She had a razor sharp arrow, aimed strait at Haze, cocked tightly into her bow, and a delicious smirk befitting any troublemaker. She released her grip on the bowstring, and it made a _twip_ sound as it released the arrow, which flew like a bullet hyped on medication.

The arrow hit the barrel of the firing blaster-gatling with enough force to send the gun rotating around, blasting and destroying in it's path. Haze panicked at first, trying to catch the rapid-fire hellfire-machine. Then he had to duck and cover to avoid the blaster's attempt to put hundreds of holes in his head. "NO!" Haze jumped up the second he was clear and wrapped his arms around the base of the blaster to stop it from hitting the zynothium bomb on the same level. He kicked away the power cable free from its coupling to stop the blaster just before it could've destroyed the bomb.

"Phew…" Haze slumped down to the ground away from the live power cable with a sigh of relieve. "It's safe…"

Then he heard a thump against metal and the tripod mount of the gatling-blaster violently shook once as it to compensate for added weight.

Haze slowly looked from the base of the tripods legs upwards.

"But you're not…", Red X said, as he perched atop the blaster and displayed his most horrible death glare.

_Crack!_

_Thump!_

_Umph! _

_Thump!_

_Oof! _

_Agh!_

Those were the sounds that echoed as Red X almost literally kicked Haze across the platform, one attack at a time.

Haze continued to back up, attempting to regain his balance as Red X continue to punch his head without mercy and impale his gut with his foot. Red X uppercutted and then kneed Haze's stomach and the purple-clad villain backed up against the railing of his platform. Then X took a single step back for appropriate range, and sent his foot strait upwards and kicked Haze in the jaw of his helmet, and sent him flying over the railing.

Haze landed hard on the cold and unforgiving metal floor, the padding of his suit absorbing a great portion of the force from his fall. But that didn't mean that his head wasn't spinning like a tilt-a-whirl gone out of control.

The ground shook again when Red X landed just in front of his head with a heavy landing and a loud thump. The thief leaned down and clutched Haze by the shoulders of his cape and pulled him up enough for his head to droop and hang dizzy below.

"Huh! Well! Ya looked for me all this time! Here I am! I don't even know why you wanted me on your wall so bad… But here I am! Now what!", Red X yelled.

Haze said nothing, but held out his closed hand, which now clutched a hand-held detonator with a red plunger for the thumb to press.

"Oh great.", Red X said.

Haze pressed the red plunger with his thumb and suddenly red lights through out the cavern light and rotated like sirens.

X carelessly dropped haze back on the metal floor. "Now what!"

"I don't know!", Arrowette said as she ran up.

"Zynothium detonation in five minuets.", a computerized female voice said over a loud speaker somewhere.

"Typical.", Red X said unamused.

Then Haze sprang to life and ran off down the platform.

"What? He played possum?", Arrowette said.

"Why you little-", Red X said as he took a step to pursue, but then Arrowette grabbed the edge of his cape and held him back. He looked back at her.

"You're the last guy here who knows anything about Zynothium that's till conscious.", she said as she held on to the tatters of his cape. "Go defuse that bomb!"

Red X looked back to Haze as he disappeared down a second tunnel that had recently been dug by someone other then Slade's worms. "Yeah. Okay. You're right." He narrowed his eyes and looked back to Arrowette. "Can you please let go of my cape now?"

Arrowette did so. "How do we get out of here? I was blindfolded when he brought me here."

Red X pointed to the first tunnel entrance he came out of. "Go down that tunnel. Follow the trail of unconscious lackeys out of here. Take my bike."

"But-"

Red X interrupted her by handing her the key to his bike; the key chain being nothing more then leather charm with a skull on it similar to the one of his face.

She timidly cupped her hands together as he dropped it in her hands.

"Go."

"But what about you?"

"Did I stutter?", Red X asked sternly.

Arrowette was silent, and almost leaned up to kiss his cheek again, but instead just nodded like a little girl and ran off down the tunnel.

Other lackeys in the cavern were running away or carrying the lackeys who were unconscious.

"Well… Never wanted to live forever anyway.", Red X said.

He reached to his belt and withdrew his grapnel gun yet again, and within a few seconds was atop the second platform with the zynothium bomb.

He approached the large consol and beheld the zynothium vial that was held by a thin robotic claw.

Ignoring the flashing red lights around him, he slowly reached out and touched the vial as carefully as he touched any painting on a heist.

Then he lifted vial upwards. The robotic claw released its grip on the vial, sensing the pressure difference of another touch on the vial.

X held up the vial to examine it, and he looked at the rest of the bomb as it shut down and the red lights went off.

"Zynothium detonation error reached. Aborting project and awaiting further instruction.", the computerized female voice said.

"Well, that was easy!", Red X said as he tucked the vial safely away in a long horizontal compartment on the very back of his belt. He looked back at the rest of the bomb and saw that it was in fact very inactive.

Now for Haze…

-X-

"Don't know… How you found me… I'll get you, X… you and the Titans… get you X… I'll get you…", Haze muttered to himself as he ran down the second tunnel.

The only reason this tunnel had ever been dug was to allow a secret access to Haze's lair, or rather an entrance near his home.

"I'll get you… Red X… And your little side kick cheerleader too…"

Suddenly Red X himself grabbed Haze's shoulders and threw him into the wall of the tunnel beside them.

"Oof!", Haze said as his head bounced off the solid rock and he fell to the ground. "Ugh…", Haze moaned as he cleared his head on the ground. Then he saw Red X looming over him with squared shoulders and tightly narrowed eyes.

"Get up.", the thief said.

"Why you…", Haze hissed as he slowly stood up. "I ought to…"

"Cram it!", Red X said as he held out his hand. "You've talked enough. You've been hunting me down and giving me a royal headache!", he said with an accusingly pointed finger.

Haze was quiet but his fists were tightly clenched.

"I've been thinking a lot about what I'd say to you if I ever met you face to face…", Red X said menacingly.

Haze stared him down.

Then Red X relaxed his shoulders and withdrew a small white pad of paper from a compartment on his belt behind his back. "Ahem. You're so ugly that when you were born, the doctor slapped your mother.", he said aloud as he read off the pad of paper.

Haze widened his eyes and dropped his jaw under his helmet in almost comical shock. "…What?"

Red X held up his hand again. "Not done yet." Then he read aloud again, "You're so dumb, you thought a quarterback was what happened when you gave a dollar to the peanut guy at the football game."

Haze slowly overcame his shock and slowly lowered his head in an animalistic rage. "You stupid Neanderthal…", Haze began.

"Didn't like that? How about this one?", Red X said. "You're such a preppy that you have to pay a membership fee to consider yourself a member of the rest of the human race."

Haze growled and lunged at the thief turned stand up comedian.

But Red X side stepped Haze without looking away from his pad of paper and said, "You're so ugly, you'd scare a police horse."

Haze accidentally ran right into the other wall after Red X narrowly dodge him. He turned his head around and said, "Stop that!"

"Man, tough room tonight.", Red X said. "You're so stupid that it must have been the lifeguard's day off when you were in the gene pool."

"AGH!", Haze lunged at X and swung his fists wildly to try and hit Red X.

But Red X dodged each fist without looking away from his pad of paper. "You're so ugly that when you stuck your head out your window you were arrested for mooning."

"Stop it!", Haze whined like a child as he continued his futile assault.

Red X front kicked Haze in the stomach effortlessly and sent the purple megalomaniac to the ground again.

Haze sulked on the ground a moment.

"You're so ugly that 'Baywatch' would let you drown. You're so fat that when you back up I can hear a beeping sound.", Red X said, ignoring Haze.

"Stop it…", Haze whined.

"What's wrong?", Red X asked cruelly as he put away his pad of paper. "Don't like it when someone just wont leave you alone? Don't like it when someone just keeps coming at you." Red X slowly walked closer. "Just keeps… Coming back. Again and again." He leaned down somewhat and narrowed his eyes. "Don't like it, do you?"

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Haze yelled as he threw himself up off the ground.

Red X stood up and took a step back but held his ground.

"You…", Hazed began. "You have no idea what I've been through!"

"Yeah! I don't! I have no clue who you or why you hate me!", Red X said.

"You stole it all from me! You and the Titans!"

"Yeah yeah yeah… We took the only love you ever had. Sorry, doesn't cut it for me. What exactly did I do to you? What did the Titans do?"

"You stole my father from me!", Haze yelled back. "It was always about the Teen Titans with him! That's all he ever talked about! Robin this! Starfire that! Cyborg! Raven! Even Beast Boy! He loved them! More then me! Always talking about them, donating to them, and idolizing them."

"Lots of people talk about them. Donate money to them. They're the city's superheroes.", Red X pointed out.

"Robin was the son he never had!" Haze continued his rant, seemingly unaware of Red X. He even began pacing back and forth along the ground with his hands up in the air. "Constantly hassling me to be more like Robin! More like the Titans! He couldn't just accept me and love me!" He paused and lowered his arms, his back to Red X. "And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse…" He turned around and pointed accusingly at Red X. "_You_ came along!"

"Me?"

"Yes you! You brought… _her_… into my life."

Red X paused, "Her?"

"You robbed us! Stole from us! Granted, the Titans recovered the stolen goods and gave it back to us… Which made my Dad even more adoring of them… But after that, he hired _her_!"

"Wait a minuet… The Titans never took back any loot I stole.", Red X said, excluding the original zynothium belt that Robin had stolen back.

Haze went on as if Red X had never spoken. "He hired her as head of security! And she was apparently so good at it, that she became his personal assistant! She was over all the time! At dinner! For movie night! She was always there! And at first I only mildly hated her, but then the day came when we found out… That she was my sister!"

"Whoa, wait a minuet. You mean to tell me that same girl he hired turned out to be your sister? How's that remotely possible?"

He turned around and began pacing back and forth away and then towards Red X. "Then he adopted her and she moved in with us! She tried to be so nice… Oh how I hated her when she pretended to be nice!"

"Hello? Haze? You still with me here?", Red X said, trying to get his attention again.

"Every night she tried to be nice, rubbing it in my face that she was better! Rubbing it in my face with her blasted cookies. Oh how I hate her moist and deliciously irresistible cookies! OH HOW I HATE THEM! HATE HER!"

"Meanwhile, in reality!", Red X yelled.

Haze was suddenly aware of Red X's presence again. "You… You and the Titans ruined my life…"

"Oh, will you shut up!", Red X yelled. "You spoiled little rich brat!" Red X rushed forward and punched Haze squarely on the side of his helmet, wrenching the young villain aside. "I've known people who've slept on the streets! On the cold, hard concrete! You slept in a bed!" Red X punched him again with the other fist and Haze wrenched to the other side.

Haze raised his arms to attack, but X instinctively blocked and kneed him in the stomach.

"And I didn't forget them either!" X kneed Haze two more times before pushing him away, where Haze held his stomach in pain for a moment. "I didn't forget! I may be swimming in cash now, but I never ever forgot what it's like on the streets!" X kicked Haze's head without warning with a powerful thrust kick.

Haze stumbled backwards and held onto rock protruding from the tunnel's wall.

Red X grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the wall. "I survived and ya know what!" Then Red X slammed Haze back into the wall hard. He pulled him back away from the wall. "I give to charity!", Red X confessed.

X slammed Haze into the wall a second time. Then he pulled Haze away from the wall and tossed him aside like an old unwanted rag doll. "That's right!", he said as Haze rolled on the hard ground. "I give money to churches and homeless shelters!"

Haze moaned on the floor.

Then Red X grabbed him again, picked him up, and pushed him back.

Haze struggled to catch his balance.

"Bet you never would've guessed that my dirty little secret is tax deductible!" Red X punched Haze again with powerful right cross, putting his whole hips and back into it to increase the force of the punch. The blow contacted Haze's helmet with bone crunching power, and Haze flew aside head first into the rocky wall of the tunnel.

Haze slammed against the wall head first, then leaned against the wall.

Red X lowered his fists to waste level, his cape draping over his shoulders and upper arms. "Get up.", he said.

Haze didn't move for a moment. Then he moved an inch away from the wall, and Red X saw shards of glass fall from Haze's helmet. "You talk…" He paused. "You talk as if you're a saint." He backed away from the wall, then slowly turned around, his head peeking over his purple shoulder first.

Red X's eyes widened.

A portion of the left side of Haze's large skull-shaped visor had cracked and fallen away, revealing his left cheek, a blue eye, and locks of curly dark red hair just above it. The left side of his fair and lightly colored face had the unmistakable trappings of youth.

"You're…", Red X said as his eyes narrowed into an inquisitive stare.

"That's right…", Haze said. "I'm just a kid. A teenager. Just like you. Just like the Teen Titans." His gaze narrowed and a glare clearly came from his one visible blue eye. "Odd, isn't it?"

Red X paused while he regained his foreboding domineer. "Not really… What teenager doesn't wear tights these days?"

"I really do hate you, you know. Possibly more now then the Titans..."

"Feeling's mutual. I definitely like them more then you."

"Did the Titan's steal something from you too?"

"Other way around, dip stick."

"Bet they wish they never created you."

"Probably do."

"Bet you wish you never created me." , he said with a strangely satisfied look in his eye.

X narrowed his eyes and clenched his fist. "I didn't create you."

"You stole from us. Brought her into my life."

Red X clenched his fists until his knuckles where white under his glove.

"All you're fault…"

"Cram it!" Red X punched him again. "I am SO sick of listening to you!" Then X punched him again with the other fist. "You are such a whiner!" Red X kicked him in the gut again and he flew back. But X snatched the edge of his cape before he hit the ground and whipped him back up by using his cape like a leash.

"I made my little fortune!", X said as he grabbed the side of Haze's head and smashed it against the stone wall again. "You inherited you're cushy little excuse of a life!" Red X threw him aside.

Haze staggered in a dizzy fashion, and then lunged with a punch.

X grabbed the punching arm, threw it aside, and uppercutted Haze's battered gut again. "I survive! I survived back then and I'll survive you!"

Haze pulled away from X's gasp and held his stomach.

"Doesn't matter! I'll survive. Because I know how to take care of myself! You just sit around and blame me because your daddy never played catch in the park with you!"

"Hate you…"

"And because you're not your dad's favorite child! Boo who! Pick a number and get in line behind all the rest of the middle children in the world."

Haze lunged at X aggressively, and Red X took enjoyment in effortlessly slapping away every punch and attack.

"I'll survive you and I'll survive this!"

Haze punched.

Red X caught the Haze's punching fist. "Because I adapt!" He twisted Haze's wrist painfully. "And you…"

Haze glared at X while he twisted his wrist painfully.

"And you…"

Haze continued his death glare.

"You just cry…" Red X uppercutted Haze's jaw hard! "-FOR YOUR DADDY!"

Haze was lifted off his feet and flew headfirst backwards. The world was in slow motion to Red X, and he savored the sight of Haze flying backwards like a lifeless rag doll.

Haze landed and rolled on the floor again, then laid there in defeat.

Red X lowered his clenched fist to his belt level. "And ya know what else, Haze? You're a really bad fighter.", he told Haze.

Haze chuckled weakly while holding his side. "If I'm such a terrible combatant, Red X…" He slowly got up, his purple cape hung from one side of his shoulder like a shredded flag on a day without wind. "…then why…" He turned and stared at Red X like a maniac, his one left eye burning a whole strait into Red X's soul. "…do I have a trump card still!"

Red X watched quietly.

Haze held his side with one hand, and his other hand reached to the back of his belt, which was covered by his dirty purple cape. Then with that hand he removed a small explosive device. Haze began laughing, clearly loosing a grip on the last pieces of his sanity. He pressed a button on the device and it began beeping.

"Until next time…", Haze said before dropping the bomb on the ground. Haze immediately turned to run away down the tunnel.

No room to dodge. It'd be suicide to get closer to the bomb in order to chase Haze further. So Red X did what any sentient creature would do.

He turned around and ran.

_KABLAM!_

Red X was thrown to the ground as the earth around him shook with violent force. Then something else happened.

There were pipes. Pipes the pumped oxygen, water, and propane through the tunnels for Haze's workers and henchmen.

And the bomb Haze threw ruptured a propane pipe.

A line of fire ensued as the explosion traveled down the propane pipes throughout that tunnel. A maze of fire and wrath continued on as the explosion traveled through pipes out of the tunnel and into the main cavern, back into other tunnels, and all around the underground tunnels that had become Haze's lair.

As Haze ran, he stumbled and barely dodged rocks that fell when the pipes blew them out of their steadfast hold to the walls.

Red X covered his head with his cape and narrowed his body as rocks fell around him, narrowly missing him.

Haze looked back and saw that his bomb had collapsed rock and sealed off the tunnel, locking away Red X. He also saw something that made his newly fractured soul smile with delight.

Water.

Water was beginning to gush from the ceiling of the tunnel.

Between the water pipes and the water above them in Jump City's bay, the tunnel's floor was suddenly saturated with fresh pouring water.

Water also rushed out from spots where rock had fallen after the exploding pipes had knocked the rocks loose and unstable.

"Good bye, after all… Red X.", Haze said, then ran off down the tunnel, hurrying to his exit before the tunnels filled with water.

Red X looked up from the ground he laid on and saw water poring over the rocks that had sealed off the tunnel. It pored viciously.

"Oh… Great."

Red X got up as water gently reached his boot and lapped against it. He ran off down the damaged tunnel, splashing water with his footsteps.

He reached the main cavern by the time the water was at his ankles, and the water pored out of the tunnels entrance down into the seeming abyss below.

With no time for jokes or catch phrases, Red X withdrew his grapnel gun one last time and fired it at the added platform above, and swung. His shadow gracefully crept over the blast marks and used shuriken that were left over from the battle as he swung. He flew towards the tunnel entrance, and a last piece of ice and frozen goo shattered into pieces when he crashed into it, breaking his fall.

Red X retracted the grapnel as he rolled on the ground after impacting the piece of ice, then got up with a groan. He put away his grapnel gun after the grapnel retracted and ran for his life back down the tunnel.

None of the unconscious lackeys he left behind were still there. Arrowette had somehow gotten them or encouraged other lackeys, that were still conscious, to pick them up and run.

Now this… Was adrenalin.

Red X hadn't felt the rush of a successful heist in a while, and even if it was a different kind of rush, he still welcomed the adrenalin rush from running for his life.

He put that energy into running faster, and made his way down the tunnel in record time.

-X-

As the tunnel sloped upwards, Red X continued his trek until he hit the highest elevation of the tunnel before it slopped downwards again. Just as he reached the apex of the slope before the tunnel's path lead downhill, he heard a loud rumble coming from all over him.

He hit the floor again and curled into a small ball, his cape wrapped around him. When the rumble stopped he emerged from his cocoon made of his cape, and stared horrified.

Rocks had caved in and sealed off both ends of the tunnel in front and behind him! Of all the hapless luck!

And, of course, the miniature earthquake that collapsed both sides of the tunnel around also loosened rocks and allowed water to pore more heavily into what little tunnel was left.

Red X felt all the energy wash away from inside him in an instant when he realized what had happened.

He was trapped.

Trapped underground.

Trapped underground in a small tunnel with rapidly flooding waters.

He sat on the elevated ground and contemplated his fate. It would probably take five to ten minuets to flood the entire chamber, he estimated. He had a small rebreather on him, which would provide him with another thirty minuets of air. Forty minuets if he breathed slowly and meditated.

Either way, in less then an hour, he'd be pushing up daisies.

No. No, Red X hadn't given up yet. He told Haze he'd survive this. He couldn't give up. But what was left for him to do? He was trapped. Most of his weapons and explosives were already spent in the battle with Haze and Chang's lackeys, so he couldn't blast his way out.

Red X pretended for an instant that the idea setting off an explosion in a small underground chamber was a good idea.

The thief hung his head down below his shoulders.

"Ya know… I never expected to last forever, but… Do I really have to just sit around and wait for it?", he asked no one in particular. "Couldn't I have gone out in a way that was more exciting? Like fighting zombie ninjas or something?"

The sound of water falling from the ceilings and splashing against the already existing pool of water below filled the small chamber.

"I mean, I know I haven't been a model human being. But there are worse. Lot's worse.", he rationalized.

Then he threw his head up as if to speak directly to the heavens. "And I just saved the city! For the second time! Come on! I don't deserve to go out like this!"

No answer came.

He lowed his head again. "Wonder if anyone will find me. Wonder what Arrowette will tell the Titans." He paused. "Wonder who'll feed my pet rock."

He was quiet for a moment, the water level rising.

…

"Grr… I hate this! Why do I just have to sit around and wait!" He sighed heavily. "Guess if I get sick of waiting, I could always trip the suit's powercore. Talk about going out with a bang. Least it wouldn't be so boring."

…

"Wait a minuet…" Red X looked down at the buckle of his belt, the heart of the suit's power, the Zynothium core. His eyes narrowed in thought. "I wonder…"

He looked up at the ceiling. The chamber was barely lit by two battery powered halogen lights that Chang's lackeys installed; same lights that ran through out all the tunnels. These two lights were anchored to a large boulder just above Red X.

Red X pondered.

He noticed a crack just at the edge of the large bolder and the rest of the packed dirt and rock that made up the ceiling.

Then his eyes widened. "That's it!" He paused. "THAT'S IT!", he shouted with glee. Then he reached behind his back, into a compartment on the back of his belt, and withdrew the zynothium vial he took from the bomb.

Out of explosives? Yeah right! He had a vial of Zynothium! And he wouldn't even have to take any Zynothium out of his belt's powercore, which was a pain in the rear end to access anyway.

Faith and energy returning with the promise of a new a plan, Red X quickly reached into his belt and pulled out his communicator. With it's navigation feature, just like Robin's, Red X discovered he was only five feet below the bottom of Jump City Bay! Of course, those five feet were solid rock, but still.

"No wonder the water's rushing in like art house movie patrons.", Red X commented excitedly.

It was a good sign whenever he made jokes at society's expense.

If he could manage to blow a hole in the ceiling, he could swim out of this trap and escape! He could use his rebreather to ensure he had enough air to make it up to the surface of the bay at his leisure.

"Yeah!"

He rose to his feet with cheer and hope in his heart as he ran over to the large crack.

He grinned sinisterly beneath his mask and crammed the vial of glowing red Zynothium into the crack.

Then he jumped downhill to the end of the tunnel he had come from. He hid behind a large rock that had come undone from the wall and was partially submerged below water. He clung to the rock while he felt the chill of the ice-cold water that now was up to his shoulders.

He quickly reached underwater, and from his belt removed the rebreather. He grasped it in his left hand as he wrapped his left arm around the rock, prepared to use it as a shield. He raised his right arm from the cold water, palm open wide, and held it out.

He pointed his palm at the vial of Zynothium, and then his palm began to glow a bright red as he charged up for a powerful blast of energy.

This was it! He had found a way out! He'd survive after all, if the blast itself didn't make him go splat against the tunnel wall that was.

And as he charged up and prepared to fire, a strange thought randomly entered his mind.

If he made it, if he really survived this, would he change? Would he really give up thieving if he could make it out of here in one piece? Thievery may have made him rich, but it had netted him several enemies, which included both the Teen Titans and Haze. Then again, it had also presented him with a possible friend in Arrowette. And his short but magnificent career as a thief had been the greatest thrill of his life. There wasn't much more he couldn't steal.

Had Red X reached the peak of his career as a super-thief after such a short time? Was it time to hang up the belt and live off of his stolen jewels and loot? He had enough to live pretty comfortably for the rest of his life. And that's if he didn't somehow get into legitimate business.

If he made it out of this, he could easily disappear and start a new life with all his money and loot, and never ever break a single law again.

Nah, that'd be boring.

Especially when he could take his fortune and his suit and pursue other forms of thrill seeking.

And hey, why not try being a hero? After all, it would be a thrill of sorts. Maybe he could get his record wiped clean of his crimes and misdeeds too. Maybe he'd even get a sidekick. Or perhaps he'd just work with Arrowette more often. Who knew, he might even end up working with the Titans once. He could get along with Robin for once.

If Red X survived, he'd have the same chance he never knew he had every day he woke up. He'd have the chance to turn over a new leaf, a chance to give up being a thief.

Red X pondered over the thought as the energy gathered in the palm of his hand.

He thought.

Then he chuckled to himself.

"Pfft. Yeah, right. I'm Red X. I'm a thief!", he shouted triumphantly! Then he leaned forward and with his left hand inserted the special mouthpiece of the rebreather into a resalable slit in his mask just over the teeth of the skull on his face. He grasped the mouthpiece with his teeth and began breathing from it.

Then he looked back up confidently at the vial of Zynothium and fired the blast of energy from his hand.

The red energy launched from his hand and flew towards the vial of Zynothium like a screaming missile.

A bright flash of light and the sound of a small concussion followed as the blast of energy pierced the Zynothium vial and the Zynothium inside exploded like a miniature supernova.

_KABLAM!_

Red X was blown back against the far wall by the force of the blast, and the bright red light blinded him.

Outside, at the bottom of the bay, the explosion blew away pieces of rock and sent a cloud of smoke and dust spreading through the adjacent water.

Then water pored inside, increasing the atmospheric pressure inside the cavern. A small tsunami of water crashed into Red X and pounded him against the wall again. He quickly swam upwards above the raging water, almost hitting his head on the ceiling of the tunnel.

The air in the chamber escaped through the hole and emerged from the ocean floor as a huge bubble.

Once the chamber was filled with water, Red X kicked against the wall and swam desperately towards hole.

As he swam, the rocks around the hole fell loose and the hole widened. Red X had just reached the entrance of the hole when the rocks fell loose, and he desperately tried to dodge them.

Then he looked up just as a stray boulder fell and hit his head hard.

Then it was quiet.

It was very quiet.

…

Outside and above the hole, the bubble of air had quickly reached the surface of the bay.

And slowly, ever so slowly, Red X floated out of the hole and towards the water's surface above. His arms, legs, and cape dangled below him like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

Rebreather still in his mouth, he had escaped after all. Just like he said he would.

So he slowly floated upwards.

But his eyes were closed.

And he wasn't moving.

………………………………………………………………………………...

Author's Note: I'm sorry it took me so long! But I wanted to make sure I really gave my fans what they deserved.

Don't worry, there's still one more chapter left.


	12. Friend Or Foe

"A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling." -Arthur Brisbane

………………………………………………………………………………...

There were no leaves on the trees.

And the sun did not shine quite so brilliantly through the murky grey clouds that wrapped around the city like the blanket of a sickly patient.

They were all dressed in black.

They were his mourners.

Arrowette. Robin. Starfire. Cyborg. Beast Boy. Raven. Katarou. Jinx. Gizmo. Mammoth. Blackfire. Johnny Rancid.

The six heroes and six villains gathered on this hallowed ground to pay last respects to him.

To the deceased.

To Red X.

Arrowette couldn't stop sobbing. She wore a simple black dress but kept her red mask on. Robin and Starfire stayed close to her almost the entire time, offering a hand on her shoulder or a hug when needed.

The mourners all gathered inside the small church to attend Red X's funeral. Large and colorful stained glass windows towered above them as they took their seats in the pews. The church was so cliché it might've provoked a joke from Red X, if he was still capable of mocking cliché things that is.

Robin almost longed to hear Red X mock him again. Almost.

Red X, himself, lay in his open casket at the front of the church. He was still completely in costume, even down to his Zynothium belt. Nothing was changed about him. Even down to the last tatter on his cape, carefully preserved and laid down neatly. His arms crossed over his chest in an X pattern.

First a man of the cloth stepped forward and quoted a few verses of scripture in a soft but firm tone, and almost fatherly tone. When he was finished, he said "Amen" and took a seat in the pews.

Robin, dressed in a suit and his mask, stepped up to a podium that was to the right Red X's casket.

"Ahem.", he said, clearing his throat. "As I'm sure all of you know… We're here to pay our last respects to Jump City's greatest thief, known only as, Red X." A distinct ring of regret echoed in his voice.

Arrowette tried to be strong, but still sobbed into a handkerchief that Starfire had given her, like a grieving widow.

"I spent a long time chasing Red X. Trying to put him behind bars. I didn't want this though.", Robin said.

Katarou was dressed in a black Chinese outfit. He sat next to Blackfire, who seemed to be making a show of her tears. Katarou was tempted to reprimand her for being so dishonorable at Red X's funeral, but let it pass. He didn't want to dishonor Red X by starting a fight at his funeral.

"Unfortunately, I never got back the suit that Red X had stolen from me, the suit he's currently wearing.", he said with a subtle annoyance. "He requested to be buried in it, as stated in his will." Robin held up Red X's will, which was a crumpled up tin foil wrapper from a candy bar with writing on it.

"However…", Robin continued. "We refused to do a few things on the will. For instances, we refused to burry him upside down so that…" He held up the will and read aloud. "'…the world can kiss my butt goodbye.'"

Johnny Rancid chuckled to himself, wearing a suit jacket with the sleeves ripped off. "Kid had an attitude, I'll give him that.", he whispered to himself.

Robin put away Red X's will. "Red X did request, though, that at this point anyone who'd like to come up and give a short speech be allowed to do so. So, come on up and say a last few words if you'd like."

Robin stepped down from the podium and returned to his seat.

There was an awkward silence at first, but soon Katarou stood up and walked to the podium while carrying incense. He set the incense on the podium, lit a match, and began to burn the incense. "Red X was a proficient warrior and a cunning thief. He was one of the few people to have bested me in battle, and sadly I will not be able to challenge him to a rematch. I pray his ancestors guide him safely into the next world… Whoever they are." He set the incense on the floor near the casket, and returned to his seat.

Next, Red X's pet rock was on the podium table next to a piece of paper with a carefully written speech.

…

"Wow…", Jinx said after listening to the speech.

Blackfire sobbed harder and wiped her teary eyes with a handkerchief. "He has such a way with words…"

The pet rock took his seat at the pew again.

Then Blackfire rose from her seat and flew over to the podium. She sobbed into a handkerchief of her own. "My heart will always ache for the loss of Red X… He was the most giving thief I ever knew, and was always an enigma. It is some comfort, however, to know I meant so much to him. But no… It's not about the money he left me in the will. It's about the lessons he left behind for us!"

"Uh… Blackfire?", Robin said.

"Lessons like… Um, sharing! And, caring. Indeed, Red X had much to teach all of us.", Blackfire continued.

"Blackfire!", Robin shouted.

"What? Don't you know how rude it is to interrupt someone doing a eulogy?"

"Blackfire, you're not in the will.", Robin stated matter-of-factly as he withdrew the tin foil will from his jacket.

"What?"

"Yeah. You're not mentioned anywhere.", Robin said, annoyed. "He didn't leave you anything."

"Why that rotten little…", she began to boil, but then realized she was in front of a small audience. "Heh. Pardon me." She regained her composure, and then leaned against the podium with a sly sort of grin. "Such a shame to see a fine piece of thief like that go, huh? Am I right, girls?"

Suddenly, a rabid Arrowette tackled her off the stage, and proceeded to maul the Tamaranian.

Soon after that event was settled, Starfire floated up to the podium.

"I am saddened by the passing on of the Red X. I would like to express my sorrow in a traditional Tamaranian folk song sung for fallen warriors.", Starfire said.

"Uh oh.", Blackfire said.

Starfire took a deep breath, and then emitted a sound that was a cross between exploding bagpipes and nails on a chalkboard.

Everyone in the church covered their ears and winced in pain.

Gizmo envied Red X for being lucky enough to not be able to hear this.

When Starfire was done, everyone slowly unclasped their hands from their ears.

"That was…", Katarou began.

"I know. She always was off-key.", Blackfire said.

Jinx gave her an odd look and tried to imagine how that noise could ever be a song.

"Thank you.", Starfire said meekly and took her seat again.

Next, Beast Boy stepped up to the podium and fixed his clip-on tie.

He chuckled once nervously. Then he began reading from a grease-stained napkin from his favorite pizza parlor. "Hello, ladies and germs. I didn't really know Red X too well, except for when he pinned me to the wall with all that weird red goo. And although I still believe he was a bionic monkey infused with Robin's DNA… Or least part of a clone army of Robins from the far future… I'm sad to see him go off to the big art museum in the sky. Get it? Art museum? He was a thief."

The audience was completely quiet.

A cricket chirped in the background.

Beast Boy seemed to deflate on stage. "Tough room…" He walked off back to his seat.

Cyborg, who dressed in a tuxedo that barely fit his bulky metal frame and a top hat, leaned over to Raven, who sat next to him. "Hey, you gonna say something?", he whispered to her.

"What's there to say? It's not like I knew him." Raven wore a completely black cloak today instead of her blue one, and she kept it wrapped tightly around her. The hood wrapped over her head and hid her face in deeper shadows.

"Yeah, but its his funeral. Figured you would've had something to quote from Edgar Allen Poe or something."

"Hmm…", Raven mused over the idea.

Mammoth, who had been sobbing like a baby the whole time, blew into his handkerchief. Jinx was patting his shoulder and said, "Come on. You can do it."

Mammoth nodded, sniffled, and rose from his seat. He walked past Red X's open casket and stood at the podium. "Red X was…" Sniffle. "He… He…" Then Mammoth broke down into wails and tears again, and ran off the stage and back to his seat while crying.

Then Raven rose from her seat and levitated across the room, and to the podium. "Edgar Allen Poe once said… 'Some things are so completely ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!'" There was a moment of silence. "I… Just thought that would be fitting. Considering that this is _Red X's_ funeral." Another awkward silence. "Um… Yeah." Then she floated off back to her seat.

Johnny Rancid walked up to the podium. "Hey… Listen, everyone, I have no idea why I'm here. I didn't know this guy.", he pointed his thumb to Red X as he lay in his open casket. "I just sorta got this letter in the mail and um… Yeah. Thanks, I guess." He walked off back to his seat.

There was an odd minuet or two of silence, as no body came up to the podium next.

Robin assumed everyone who had something to say had said it. But he looked to Arrowette as they sat in their seats. "Do you… Want to say something?"

Arrowette sobbed and shook her head.

"You sure?", he asked.

"Yes, grieving friend, perhaps it would help to say a few kind words.", Starfire proposed.

Arrowette was quiet for a moment. "I think… I think Red X doesn't care about words."

Robin thought for a moment about what she just said, then nodded and walked to the podium.

"Guess I'll go last. Not really sure what to say about him. He was a thief. I spent a lot of time tracking him down. It was a real game of cat and mouse, of cops and robbers. I never learned who he really was." He looked over at X. "And then the guy request to be buried in the suit he stole from me. So I'll never know. I'll never know who was the one who got away from me. The one crook I couldn't catch." He turned back to the audience. "The one crook who saved not only my life once, but the whole city twice." He lowered his head in thought.

Arrowette stood up. And she walked to the podium while Robin was still there.

The confused Robin stood aside while wondering what she intended to do.

She merely lifted her head and said five little words. "That mask was his face."

Then she turned around and rushed back to her seat with a sob. Once there, Starfire held and consoled her further.

Robin was quiet for a moment.

He turned to the rest of the church. "I suppose it's time to-"

_Knock knock knock!_

Robin looked aside to the stained glass windows, and saw Kid Flash knocking on the other side. "Kid Flash?", he asked.

The red and yellow clad speedster waved, and then ran off to the side with a blur. Half a moment later he raced through the church doors, past the isle, and up next to Robin.

"Hey! By any chance could you give me some directions? I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.", he said.

"Uh… Flash… This is a funeral!", Robin informed him.

"It wha?" Kid Flash turned around and saw Red X lying in his casket. "Ack!", he flinched. Then he turned around to Robin and scratched the back of his head of scarlet red hair. "Uh… Real sorry about this everyone. If I could just get some directions to Metropolis, I'll be out in a flash."

"That way." Robin pointed off in the direction, as if he was a human compass.

"Thanks!" He turned to Red X. "And um… Take care?" He shrugged, and then ran out of the church in a red and yellow blur.

"Now that that's over with…", an annoyed Robin said. "As I was saying…"

"Hey!", Kid Flash said as he quickly reentered the church. "Which way was that again."

Everyone pointed in the direction Robin had.

"Thanks.", Kid Flash said, then he left in the blink of an eye.

The ever-annoyed Robin sighed. "Forget it. Let's just bury him."

Robin walked over to Red X's casket, set his hand on the lid, took one last stare at the thief he never could catch, and shut the casket.

A note on the casket's lid read, "Best before last week."

Robin glared. "Ha ha…", he said slowly and menacingly. Then he ripped off the note and crumbled it up.

Gizmo, the author of the note, laughed to himself.

"It was Red X's last request that a specific few people carried him to his eternal resting place. If the following people could please come up and serve as the pallbearers?" He took out the tin foil will from his jacket and read off it. "Me, Arrowette, Katarou, and Cyborg."

Katarou and Cyborg grabbed the handles on one end of the casket, and Robin and Arrowette grabbed the other end's handles. They lifted the casket up and started caring it outside.

But since Katarou and Cyborg were much stronger and taller then Robin and Arrowette, they ended up lifting their end (the back end) of the casket higher up then Robin and Arrowette could. The end result was a crookedly carried casket.

Arrowette strained somewhat to carry her load. "Why do I get the feeling he planned it this way?", she said, referring to how Katarou and Cyborg lifted their end higher.

"Because he did." To Robin, this was just yet another one of the last little jokes Red X had arranged. He figured he should probably enjoy the humor in it.

Red X wouldn't be making very many more jokes.

Johnny Rancid stepped off to the side, picked up his guitar, and began playing a tune. Heavy rock. Johnny continued to wail on his guitar happily. "ooh ah ah ah ah!", he screamed as the pallbearers walked. "ohhh ah ah ah ah!"

Raven walked up to him. "Hey! I thought we agreed you would play 'Stairway To Heaven!'"

Johnny stopped playing. "What? You kidding me? Have you heard that song backwards! Creepy!"

Raven turned around and began to walk off with a satisfied and sly smirk. "I know."

Onwards the pallbearers walked down the steps of the church and outside. A cold and brittle breeze greeted them as they walked to the near by graveyard.

The other mourners followed them out of the church.

Soon enough they approached the six-foot deep hole in the ground that was to be Red X's final resting place.

A large tombstone stood next to the grave. It was only fitting that a large "X" had been engraved and carved into it. Its epitaph read, "Soon to be reincarnated… As something right behind you!" Near the bottom it said, "Red X, exact date of birth and death unknown. Zombie version, coming soon!"

The device that lowers the casket into the grave had been placed around the perimeter of the grave. Three strong belts ran over the open grave, ready for the device to lower the casket into the ground. A nice green tarp covered the device, but left the belts clearly visible. A "casket placer" is what Arrowette thought it was called.

The pallbearers set X's casket on the belts, and prepared to lower Red X into the ground, never to be seen again. Each pallbearer let go of the handles on the casket and stepped back, save Robin, who stood next to the casket and stared at it.

"Is something wrong, Robin?", Starfire asked as she approached.

Robin paused. "I'm sorry. I have to know." He reached out and lifted the lid of the casket and stared at Red X.

"Robin… Don't.", Arrowette said. "It wouldn't be right."

"Yes… I must agree with friend Arrowette.", Starfire said. "We should not disturb the resting, least we invoke the wrath of the Kinishka.", she said, referring to some Tamaranian folklore.

"Yeah… Maybe you're right." Robin said as he prepared to close the casket. He paused. Then he quickly reached into the casket and grabbed Red X's mask!

"Robin!", Arrowette screamed.

Robin yanked the mask off. His eyes grew real wide.

Everyone gasped.

…

Red X opened his eyes.

And all he saw was sand, waves, and a seagull standing in front of him.

He was quiet for a moment.

"It… It was a dream? Did I just dream of my funeral? And it ended right at a cliffhanger?"

The seagull squawked.

"Man… That's so cheap!", Red X commented.

The seagull pecked at his head, and Red X shooed it away with a wave of his gloved hand. The seagull, who had perhaps hoped to make a meal of the thief, squawked again and flapped its wings in protest.

Red X sat up on the sandy beach and rubbed his face, as people often do after waking from a long sleep.

He felt his mask still firmly in place over his face, a final comfort that it had only been a dream and that his secret identity remained a mystery.

Red X lowered his hand and took a look around. He sat on a beach late at night. He turned around to look behind him, and his eyes widened.

Titans Tower.

He was quiet for a moment and didn't move a muscle.

Then he remembered everything that had just happened.

…

"YEAH!"

The seagull squawked as Red X reached out and grabbed it. X stood up on the sand, holding the seagull in his hands.

"Yeah! Woo Who! That stupid looking Tower is still standing and the city didn't blow up! I'm still alive! You're still alive! Ha ha ha!", he yelled out. Then he began dancing like an idiot with the seagull in his elated grip. "BOO YAH!"

He tried to hug the seagull, but it replied by squawking loudly and trying to get out of his grip. Red X realized how he was acting and let go of the seagull with a startle.

The seagull flew away into the distance.

Red X stood quiet. Then he turned and faced the Tower again.

"Ha ha!", he laughed out loud to himself, then fell back into the sand and proceeded to wave his arms and legs back and forth to make a sand-angel.

-X-

Later. Sunrise.

The Teen Titans finally returned home from Steel City, bringing Cyborg home with them.

Happy to be home and to be a team of five once again, the Titans rode together in an elevator that acceded them up the Tower.

"Hey, Cyborg!", Beast Boy said. "Wanna play Super Mega-Monkey? I just got the new demo expansion package!"

"Sounds cool, BB, but honestly… I just wanna eat a hamburger I left in the fridge and go to bed!", Cyborg replied.

"Go ahead. We got things covered here.", Robin said.

_Ding._

The elevator doors opened and the Teen Titans walked out of the elevator, down a corridor, and into the main room of the Tower.

That's when they all froze and dropped their jaws.

The entire room was covered in a layer of intertwining white toilet paper. From the floor to the ceiling, everything was laced with an intricate web of two-ply.

"We've… We've been T.P.ed!", Cyborg shouted.

"Titans! Spread out!", Robin ordered.

The Titans all fanned out and began to inspect their home for further vandalism, or perhaps the vandal himself.

Starfire gasped. "Friends! Come quickly!" She floated just beyond the threshold of the corridor that led from the main room to their bedrooms.

The rest of the Titans quickly gathered to her.

"Someone has decorated the halls with our undergarments!", she reported.

The Titans beheld that it was true. The unthinkable unmentionables had all been duct taped to the ceilings and the walls of that corridor.

Raven flew down the corridor quickly, shuddering at everything she passed, and arrived at her precious room. She opened her bedroom door to peer inside, then stood still and pale.

"Raven! What's wrong?", Beast Boy yelled as him and the rest of the Titans rushed to her.

When they arrived, they saw why she was shocked.

Her room was covered with pink powder. Everything had a distinct pink tint to it.

Robin ventured forth, and inspected the powder on the floor. "It's… sugar. Pink sugar."

"Could'a come from our stores in the basement. Mixed it with some food coloring?", Cyborg suggested.

"Someone… Colored my room pink…", Raven slowly said with a growl.

"It'll come out, Raven.", Robin said as he stood up and tried to calm her. "Just needs a good vacuuming."

"Someone colored my room PINK!", she screamed.

A black flash.

And next thing everyone knew, all the near by lights were shattered. And Raven had a twitching eye.

The rest of the Titans slowly backed away from her.

Starfire thought of something. "Friends! What about Silkie!" She flew off to her room before they could answer, opened the door, and sure enough Silkie was there to greet her. "Silkie!"

Except someone had painted a mustache and a monocle on the larva's face with a black marker.

Starfire honestly didn't know what to make of it and stood looking at him very confused.

The Titans continued their search of the Tower. Many things had been disturbed in numerous rooms of the Tower, with the kind exception of Terra's old room.

Other pranks they discovered include but was not limited to:

Motor oil squirted in Cyborg's room.

Cling wrap placed on the toilets.

Furniture and equipment from other rooms in the tower had all been rearranged and switched.

Powdered starch in the dryer.

A bucket of mud hanging from the ceiling, activated by a trip wire (which Beast Boy had discovered the hard way).

The batteries stolen had been from the TV remote.

The sugar and salt jars switched.

The water in the indoor swimming pool turned into Jell-O.

Practice dummies in the training room had been dressed with spare costumes and made to resemble each member of the Teen Titans (blue markers and spray paint was used on the one resembling Cyborg).

Red die had been placed into all of their shampoo.

Some complicated trap that tarred and feathered Beast Boy, literally.

Vaseline lotion on all of Robin's bo staffs, bird-a-rangs, and disks.

-X-

Earlier last night.

A large mansion rested on the outskirts of the city. The home belonged to Loren Jupiter, head of Jupiter Enterprises. While small compared to Wayne Enterprises or LexCorp, Jupiter Enterprises was still nothing to be laughed at and tossed aside.

In a brilliant move, Loren Jupiter, CEO of the company and avid fan of the Teen Titans, regularly funded the Teen Titans and let it be publicly known. This gave the company a very honest and trustworthy reputation to consumers and a very intimidating reputation to competitors (after all, how many companies could shack hands with Robin whenever they wanted). The best part was that the Titans themselves didn't even have to endorse Jupiter Enterprises like sold-out athletes, leaving them free to be honest heroes. The mere fact that the company was a major supporter of the Titans was all the endorsement Jupiter Enterprises needed.

But while Loren Jupiter was an astonishing businessman, he was at times less then capable as a father.

Loren Jupiter had found himself the father of one Jarrod Jupiter, his son. And by stunning coincidence, a young woman in his employ turned out to be his daughter by a late wife.

But that whole series of events is a story for some women's television channel to tell.

The window of Jarrod Jupiter's room opened and Haze crawled through.

He was dirty, tired, and extremely frustrated with his defeat at the hands of Red X earlier that night. He stood in the darkness of the room, breathing heavily like a wild and wounded animal. Suddenly and without warning, he grabbed a picture off the wall and threw it at the door as hard as he could. He relished the sound of the breaking glass as it shattered to pieces and fell to the floor.

Haze walked over to a full-body mirror on the closet door, and took off his helmet. He stared at his angry blue eyes and deep red hair. His tightened lips completed the grimace face.

He stood staring at himself in the mirror, angry enough for a blood vessel to pop. As he stared at his face, made uglier by each new drop of anger building in him, he berated himself for having lost to Red X. All his efforts and planning, all the money he'd lost. All for nothing. All so Red X could beat him to a pulp and mock him.

Haze was already a violent person, but a slight grin moved about his tense lips as he entertained himself with fantasies of Red X's gory demise. Oh, and he wouldn't just forget about Arrowette or the Titans either. His hatred had not died. It was far from over…

He would return.

A knock on the door came. "Jarrod? I heard something breaking. Are you alright?", came a concerned voice of a young woman.

"Fine…", Haze said slowly with deep venom dripping from his voice.

"Ya know, me and Dad were thinking of catching a movie tonight. You wanna come?"

It infuriated Haze even further how that wench had so quickly grown to calling_ his_ father "dad". He clenched his fists. "No.", he said sternly.

The woman on the other side of the door was somewhat disappointed but certainly not surprised. "Alright… We'll be going shortly. You have my cell phone number if you change your mind."

"Just leave me alone."

"Bye now, Jarrod." Footsteps could be heard from beyond the door as the woman walked off.

Haze found himself breathing heavily and tensely. Tonight, the mere sound of her voice was enough to make him want to strangle the closest small woodland creature.

He found himself giving into the temptation to imagine a special gory demise for that woman. A demise complete with wire, charcoal, a pronged fork, and perhaps a moving car.

No no no… Far to rudimentary for someone of Haze's sadistic expertise.

_Perhaps… Yes… That's it. Just like that. That's perfect._, Haze thought as his horrible fantasy reached new levels of fear and torment.

Just as his private fantasy reached the peek of it's gore and cruelty, Haze heard something. A gasp. Her gasp. And he thought he could sense her fear and confusion.

Then, downstairs, she shrugged it off and thought of it as her own mind playing tricks on her. But she resolved not to see a horror movie tonight.

The obscure event left Haze mystified.

Had he given her the fantasy? Had she seen his delight in her horror?

He stared quietly ahead at nothing in particular.

_Interesting…_, he thought. He would store away that event on his list of things to do, along with plotting his revenge for Red X.

Haze walked into his closet with a new bounce in his step, energized by new hope. At the very back of his closet, he moved aside all his clothes and beheld the clippings of newspaper, maps, pictures, drawings, and various ideas pinned to the walls.

So much planning. All for nothing.

All for nothing!

He grabbed each piece of paper and tore it down from the wall, until the floor was littered with rejected ideas and clippings of paper.

He stood quietly among the paper, breathing slowly, regaining his composure. Breathing ever so slowly with his head hanging down.

He said nothing for a moment or two as he thought to himself.

"Guess I'll just have to try harder next time.", he said to himself.

He looked up and stared proudly at the blank walls in the back of his closet. Soon there'd be an even better plan pinned onto those walls.

-X-

The next night.

Steam rose and filled the air as Arrowette bathed in the tub of the luxurious hotel room Red X had rented for her. The scents of bath beads, soaps, and lotions created a relaxing aroma that was only added to by gently dimmed lights.

Normally, her nerves would've been racked with worry over whether or not Red X had survived their battle with Haze and his henchmen. And she had in fact been racked with worry until Red X called her cell phone from Titans Tower. He only called her long enough to tell her he was alive, and would meet her at her hotel room later. He erased the call from the Tower's computer logs to ensure that no one would discover the call.

Once she knew Red X was alive and safe, she allowed her self to relax. After the whole ordeal, she reasoned a couple of bathes and some room service wouldn't be too much to ask. She doubted Red X would mind.

Arrowette exhaled and sunk deeper into the warm bath water.

After thoroughly water logging her skin, she got out of the tub, tried herself off, and finally emerged from the bathroom, clad in a robe and towels around her head.

The first thing she noticed was how cool and crisp the air outside the steamy bathroom was. The second thing she noticed was that the TV in her room was on, and it sounded as if the channels were being frequently changed.

Half expecting what she saw next, she looked to find Red X reclining in a chair and flipping through the channels. The remote control rested lazily in his hand.

"All squeaky clean?", he asked.

Arrowette, or rather Cissie King-Jones since she had taken off her costume hours ago, sighed contently with a smile. "Yeah… I needed that."

Red X chuckled to himself, humored by a woman's fascination with baths, and turned off the TV. He rose from his comfortable chair and asked, "How ya feeling?"

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like a truck ran over me."

"How do you think I feel?"

"I dunno. You tell me."

Red X paused for a moment. "Actually… Not all that bad."

"What happened to Haze?", a question she had silently been dreading to ask him.

"He got away. But I sent him packing with his tail between his legs."

Arrowette was relieved that Red X hadn't beaten Haze too badly or crossed a line. But she was also somewhat worried because Haze was still out there.

"I sent you all the details in an email a few hours ago.", Red X said as he walked across the room to lean with his arms crossed against a comfortable looking wall. "Should be in your inbox."

Arrowette fought off a slight chuckle as she looked over to her laptop. "I haven't checked that thing all day. All I've done is eat, sleep, and take baths." She looked back to Red X. "Think Haze will come back?"

"Not for a while anyway. I've been picking my brain all day, trying to figure out who he might've been."

"Any luck?"

Red X gave a short sigh. "Not really…"

"Why did he hate you so much?"

"Apparently, I robbed him."

Arrowette fought a laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Irony. Looks like your thieving came back to bite you."

Red X narrowed his eyes. "Except I don't remember stealing anything like he said. He said the Titans got the loot back to him. And I can tell you right now, I for one don't remember that."

Arrowette crooked her lips in thought as she walked to a piece of luggage and opened it. "Yeah?", Arrowette said to encourage Red X to continue his story.

"He said that his dad loves the Teen Titans more then he loves him. And he said after I robbed him, a woman was placed as head of security who just so happened to be his sister."

Arrowette looked up from her luggage. "Wait… The same lady that became head of security was his sister?"

"Yeah. He's mad at me for making his sister his father's official favorite child… According to him."

Arrowette blinked in confusion as she withdrew a few articles of clothing from her luggage. "That's… Odd."

"You're telling me. All the details are in that email I sent you." Red X glanced at the clothes she held in her hand, and then turned his back to her in a gentlemanly fashion.

Arrowette smiled faintly, but retreated into the bathroom to change anyway. She emerged again soon after in jeans and a simple T-shirt.

Red X still had his backed turned. His arms were crossed and his cape draped over his shoulders. He still leaned against the wall.

"I'm dressed now. Thanks."

Red X glanced over his shoulder then turned around. "Ya know… Something's still bothering me though."

"What's that?"

"How did Haze know where to contact all those villains?"

"What do you mean?"

Red X focused his eyes in intense thought, switching over to the deductive part of him. The same intuitive and analytical mind that allowed him to bypass the most secure of security systems was now fast at work on something else. He hunched his head a little lower.

"Adonis, Plunder, Al Melee, Kitten and Fang, Atomic Skull, Mad Mod, The H.I.V.E. kids…", Red X listed, holding up a finger for each name listed. "All villains that he knew how to contact. And they _couldn't_ have been easy to find, because otherwise the Teen Titans would have arrested them already!"

"That's… A good point.", Arrowette said, pondering. "That means he had some kind of connection to them all. Or some way to keep track of them all."

"Yeah. Some way the Titans didn't."

"So if he could find all the other villains… Why couldn't he find you? Why did he have to use them to find you?"

"Because no one can find me.", Red X said as he fixed his posture. "One of the benefits to not trusting very many people. It's how you survive in this business."

Arrowette stood silently and wrapped her arms around herself. "So what now then?"

"I guess now we get on with our lives as usual. Except we keep an eye open for anyone in a purple space suit."

"Get on with life, huh? Does that mean you're going back to being a thief?"

"Yeah. And it means you're going back to being a hero, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Well then…", Red X began, then found the words caught in his throat. "Guess I'll be seeing you around." He began to make a motion towards the window.

"Wait! I mean… Why don't you stop by Star City sometime? Not to steal. Just to say 'hi' or something?"

"I'm not a big fan of social visits."

"Come on, X. What you got to loose?"

"Besides my self-respect and dignity?", Red X said in a jovial tone. He even added a slight laugh to the end of the sentence.

"X…", she said, ignoring his sarcasm.

"Look, thanks for the offer, toots. Thanks for all the help, really. But in the end, I'm a thief and you're a hero."

"So? Doesn't mean we can't be friends."

Red X cocked an eyebrow up, as it to signify how ridiculous the idea sounded to him.

Arrowette thought it best to argue a different point. "Besides… You saved the city for the second time tonight. If that's not a hero, I don't know what is."

"I'm not a hero. I'm just a guy looking out for himself. And if the whole city blew up, it'd be pretty inconvenient for me too."

Arrowette stared gently into his eyes. "You told me you're not such a bad guy once I'd get to know you. You were right. Why else would you have gone all the way to Star City to warn me about a price on my head!" She paused. "If you're _half_ as selfish as you want me to believe, why'd you come back for me?"

Red X was quiet for a moment, but his mind was racing and desperately searching for an answer. Thinking quickly on his feet, he said, "Because if Haze put a hit on you, it was the best clue I had to finding him at the time."

"What about that battle with SuperBoy then? Why'd you stick around and be my bodyguard? You could've just told me and ran back off. Or when we first met and you saved me from Adonis? You could've taken the case and ran when our backs were turned."

Red X didn't have an answer for that, and words were being choked into his throat. "I never run from a good fight.", he forced out.

"Yeah right.", Arrowette said more intently. "Admit it, X… You do care about other people."

"No, I don't.", he said.

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't!", Red X exclaimed. "Why can't you get it? I'm just looking out for number one! Me! The only one who will look out for me!"

Arrowette softened the expression her face. "So why have you saved my life so many times now?"

Red X narrowed his eyes. He spoke calmly. "Go home, Arrowette. Somewhere, there's a city missing its hero.", he said.

"So this is goodbye?", she said with a hint of a downcast tone.

"Yes. Yes, it is.", he said sternly. "Good bye. Audios. Sayonara!" Then he swatted his cheeks and open mouth to create popping sounds that emulated tribesmen's communication.

Arrowette felt somewhat offended. "Ya know... It wasn't easy to sleep after I knew you learned my secret identity. I had to work to trust you." Her face slowly turned from a hurt expression to an angry one. "Had to trust that you would be a good person and keep your word."

Red X stared at her objectively, as if observing her from a distance.

"So don't go and tell me that a selfish thief saved my life and the city's. Don't go and tell me that! You got that, X? Don't even try! I did not risk my reputation as a hero to stick by and help out a thief!"

"And right about now…", he said. "I bet you're wishing you hadn't."

Arrowette boiled. "Ya know what…? I was wrong! All you are is a selfish, no good, common thief! I hope your stolen jewels are enough to keep you company!" She turned around and stormed out of the hotel room, exiting into the hallway with a slam of the door.

Red X was left alone with his thoughts. "Maybe I could'a put that a bit more… delicately."

He stared aside to the floor as he felt something inside him he didn't feel very often.

Guilt.

Arrowette was running down the hall, but halfway down the hall she lost her energy and slowly came to a stop. She sobbed once or twice, and then slowly walked back to the hotel room.

She opened the door with a lowered head. "Look, X… I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I-" She looked up, and saw that Red X was gone. The only hint to his departure was a window left open so that the night breeze could gently blow the drapes.

Arrowette was left alone in her hotel room.

She decided that maybe it was time to check out and get back home.

-X-

The next day.

Arrowette was miserable on the plain ride home. She couldn't stop feeling just a little bad about how her last conversation with Red X had gone.

Who knew when she might meet him again? Red X only appears to steal something, or to present a fence with a stolen delicacy that would make his mouth water and bankrupt him.

She feared she might never see Red X again. She feared she might never get to apologize to him, or to perhaps be the first person in a long time that he would have called "friend".

She absentmindedly held a bag of honey-roasted peanuts in her hand. She didn't have the appetite to eat them.

Once she arrived in Star City and departed her plain, her band of boy-crazy friends was there to meet her at the baggage claim. It didn't take them long to see through her smile and realize that something was bothering her.

Unable to tell them anything else logical, she said that she had a fight with her mystery boyfriend from Jump City and they broke up.

To that, her friends had only to shake their heads sadly.

"Told you bad boys didn't last.", one commented.

An hour or so later, Arrowette walked into her apartment and set down her luggage. It was getting dark, and when she flicked a light switch the ceiling lamp chased away the darkness and shadows. She was hungry, but didn't really feel like cooking or bothering to walk to a restaurant or fast food shop. The only thing the trounced young heroine wanted to do was to fall asleep on her bed and wait to for sunrise to bring a new day.

She turned off the lights and proceeded to walk into her room. She walked through the darkness of her room and turned on a lamp beside her bed.

A present was sitting on her bed.

It was a simple black box with a black square lid, tied together with a big red ribbon. A tag hung from the knot in the red ribbon.

She was startled at first to see the present sitting on her bed just under her pillow. She hadn't remembered one there when she left for Jump City.

She cautiously reached to it and observed the tag.

"To: A friend.", was written on it. A red x had been swiftly marked in the corner of the tag by a red inked permanent marker.

Arrowette blinked in confusion a few times. Normally she'd be extremely worried about a strange present waiting on her bed, but the x in the corner of the tag looked too familiar and coincidental.

After carefully examining it, she slowly began to untie the red ribbon. With it untied, she slowly lifted the black lid off the box and looked inside.

It had taken her a few seconds to completely understand what it was inside.

It was a red communicator, similar to the Teen Titan's, except this one was red and had an "A" on the lid that was stylized to resemble an arrowhead.

She slowly picked it up and examined it. She opened it, and beheld all the features and capabilities of a real Teen Titans Communicator, except this one was personally tailored to her.

Then she noticed something else in the box. Placed underneath the communicator had been a note.

"Call me. –Red X.", was written on it.

She smiled to herself widely and laughed.

She was strangely relieved. But then she was curious as to how Red X had managed to place a present in her bedroom so quickly, as if by magic.

Perhaps she would see the thief from Jump City again after all…

-X-

Later.

A beautiful katana that once belonged to Kawakami Gensai rested on Red X's coffee table. Beside the sword was his vase, which was filled with peppermints.

Red X held his own communicator in his hand above the katana, opened it, pressed a few buttons on the tiny touch screen, and waited.

"Robin here. Hello?", said Robin's voice from the communicator. "Hello? Hello!" A pause. "Speedy, is that you? This is the third time today; it's not funny anymore! Hello! Beast Boy? That's it… When I figure out-"

Red X closed the lid and hung up on Robin, and then began to laugh hysterically.

-The End-

………………………………………………………………………………...

Disclaimer: No, you are not a bad person if you laughed during Red X's funeral. You were supposed to.

Author's Note: Wow. Just over a year after it had begun, it's finally finished. I gotta admit, I'm sad to put the finishing touches on this, yet strangely proud too.

I'd like to thank all my readers and reviewers. And I'd like to thank all the people who gave me ideas or inspirations for this story, or who listened to me babble for hours about my own ideas. You know who you are.

Ya know… Who says it has to end? If you got ideas for a sequel, let's hear it! Send them to me. I want to know what my future readers would like to see in… _Twice A Thief_.

Until then…

_Better Luck Next Time._


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